Window treatments

What kind of shades?

Unfortunately, they cost way more than you think they should. Been through that. Cheaper way is ordering online and installing yourself.

Just get custom blinds or shades from blinds.com. At least that's what I plan on doing when it comes to replacing our blinds soon.

Between 20 and 100 per white faux wood blind at home depot. Measure them and install yourself.

Mom just had 8 windows for $4k installed by Home Depot.

Be sure to check out the sample book to match colors if you go the box store route. Those in-store lights vs. natural and home lighting are widely different skewing the color matching.

I got Bruce blinds and DIY. It wasn't overly difficult but you did have to be extremely accurate with your measurements prior to ordering because they are custom sized.

This is why I think good blinds cost so much; too many factors go into creating a perfect fit for every window and there's elevendy billion colors and types of materials so they can't crank off a huge batch of generic sizes that work to bring the costs down. The manufacturing process is basically a 1-off every time and they have pay someone to test it out after the material has been cut and assembled into a blind that is specific to your situation. The length, roller size, header trim that goes over the roller..all of these things have to be custom created specific to your dimensions.

I paid maybe $300 per window for 3 windows but if I had to do it all over again I would go with Lutron Serena smart blinds in a new York minute.

Eta I was the first person to bitch about how expensive blinds are (surprise right? ) but after thinking it through it makes perfect sense why they cost so much.

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This! It'll cost you a weekend, but if you're smart, you can milk it into some "appreciation" from your wife.

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measure THREE TIMES, drill once. while it seems very straight-forward make triple sure the brackets are in the correct location and perfectly level. even a very very slight variation on level will result in the shades over time starting to pool up on one side. (think toliet paper you tried to rewind on the roll)

trust me on this. you don't want to mess up your shades because they're pooling on one side because the brackets weren't completely level. this is insidious because it happens slowly over time; you may not notice how off the shades are getting for 6 months until you notice one end is frayed because its up against the bracket and it took 6 months to slowly walk over.

Also you don't want being off even a tiny bit if you're drilling into trim because the weight of the shades means if you drill another hole near a failed one, the bracket will eventually tear into the wood and fail.

i'm telling you, those seem like 2 simple things but you absolutely can't mess up on either. you really get one shot at doing this right or it will start to get messy.

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We had BudgetBlinds install 2" faux-wood blinds (PVC I think) in our house. They came out and measured the windows, and gave me a quote a few days later. I think it was less than $100 per window with the trim pieces on top included. A couple weeks later they came out and installed them all in a couple hours included in the price. Easiest and very close to the same price as ordering and installing them myself, which probably would have taken a few days with a large learning curve. Recommended by a neighbor who used them a few months prior.

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$100 per window including install? How big were the windows?

Plantation Shutters