blinds

[huss9078]

Anyone out there replace their blinds from a reputable company?
We have 8 sets and the door that need replacement.
Thanks!

[CaptTom]

We went to a big-box home improvement (Lowes or Home Depot) and had them special ordered. We got the accordion blinds with no external stings to pull, very neat and they stay in place underway. We really like them. See my avatar, it's a boat with big windows, not sure I'd do the same on a sailboat.

Some lessons learned: The price for the custom blinds was a bit more than I'd have expected from what's basically a self-service store. I wonder if we could have gotten about the same deal from a custom blind shop, and had some customer service to boot. Maybe not, but if I had it to do again I'd shop around more.

The store ordered the blinds from China anyway. Which is fine, but they're full of tiny moving parts that occasionally jam and tangle, requiring some delicate surgery to repair. Because they're custom, and from China, the parts just aren't available. I even asked once at the store where I bought them and got a blank stare. So far I've been lucky and haven't lost any critical parts, but it's a concern. Maybe now you can get parts on Amazon, they seem to have all kinds of oddball stuff.

One thing we did wrong was get one big blind for our sliding windows. We should have gotten two, so we could leave just half of the blind open when the window is slid (half) open.