Opening the Window

Back on Friday I mentioned that I might tackle a fun little project in the Living Room.  Specifically, here:

 

Not a huge change, but definitely something that’s been bothering me for months now, heck a year even, since it was just over 1 year ago we walked through our big, gross rehab house for the first time.

The big window in the Living Room should be a focal point.  It’s massive in size and definitely a unique shape, but unfortunately the horizontal window blind coming across it makes it look like 2 separate windows.  Sort of builder-grade.  I promised myself that I would live with the blinds through the summer, just to see if it was something that we needed to keep the heat of the sun out and keep the house comfortable.  And the result- we never closed it.  Well… maybe once or twice.  But like Lindsey Lohan checking into her community service, the occasions were few and far between.  So this weekend, it was finally time to give it the boot.

Here’s the part that I knew, but didn’t really grasp.  That window is hellah-high.  Even Super Dad’s big ladder that I had to borrow barely made it non-extended. You might remember back from this post that I like heights just about as much as Kei$ha likes a quiet night at home, so it took me awhile to figure out my strategy.  I decided that I preferred standing on the top rung of the A frame version better than folding it out to an extension ladder and potentially having to rest the ladder on the window to get to the space in the middle.

Step one was to pry the little tabs that head the blinds into the mounting brackets with a flat head screwdriver.  There were 4 brackets across the length of the window, which meant I had to climb up, balance, pry, climb down, and then move the ladder 4 different times. 4 embarrassingly tiring climbs.  4 near death experiences.  All followed by one really scary yank on the blinds, and an attempt to gracefully lower it to the floor without dying.  It went boom.

Then I had to head back up to the place where scaredy cats go to die to remove the bracket.  I climbed back up armed with my drill.  Lucky for all of you this is when the Hubs got out of the shower and so graciously documented the experience.

And then I almost fell.  Isn’t it so sweet that my Hubs took this time to snap a photo, instead of say, breaking my fall?

I apologize to those of you that were eating anything as you just saw that image of my butt in pajama pants.  I was just trying to keep it real with you all. Quick scroll down and think happy thoughts.  Sorry for ruining your meal.

PleasetakethephotoquickbeforeIfallanddie.

In the end, I’m really happy with the results though.

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As a reminder, here is the before:

Subtle, but I think it goes a long way to make this room more impressive.  Of course we saved the blind, and packaged up all the necessary hardware with it safely so that we can always put it back up if we change our minds.  And by “we” I mean the Hubs.  Or Ryder when he’s 15.  ‘Cause this girl’s D.O.N.E.