17 June, 2022 18:41

When we moved in we knew we’d be replacing the windows and so didn’t bother with blinds, etc. and just used removal boxes to provide some kind of privacy.

I had kept the curtains from my flat and we had a go at trying to put up a curtain rail. But this failed in the bedroom because the special screws required for the rail were too short for our plaster ceiling.

Astrid improvised a curtain in the bedroom using a large cloth and an extensible rail.

I was given the task of finding a supplier for blinds. You can choose and fit these yourself, it’s really only a matter of measuring carefully and choosing the style you want. But, as with so many things, we knew we needed a bit more help. I soon found Mr Prast in the nearby Duisburg Großenbaum, 30 minutes by bike, and he came round to discuss and measure.  The priority was for the bedroom and upstairs bathroom.

He left us a catalogue of samples which gave us more questions than answers - lots of little symbols next to the various samples - so we made an appointment to visit him in his shop and discuss things. Despite Astrid’s best attempts to avoid it, we cycled there!

We had already chosen some designs for the two rooms, but needed to check that these were suitable: privacy in the bathroom and darkness in the bedroom, which gets the morning sun. Turns out, of course, we hadn’t chosen the best styles for the job. So we went though the catalogue together and came up with two fairly neutral designs that should hopefully not clash with anything in the rooms. We also chose the style for my office, where the sun is a distraction in the winter.

The bedroom is beige on the inside but has a honeycomb structure with a metallic coating which stops the light from passing through. There are some slight gaps at the sides, which are apparently necessary to stop warm up building up, but blinds do do a pretty good job.

In the bathroom we have white and beige vertical stripes which come close to matching the tiles, though the sunshine reflected by the red wall next door tends to dominate, this is especially true in my office!

I guess we could have been bolder with the colours in the bedroom but it’s probably best to be cautious and maybe even boring. This leaves us free to put up pictures or splash some paint. We could even at some point put up one of my old curtains!

We’ve now started to think about blinds downstairs, including, the back door. We both like some of the bold prints but can’t decide whether they might be too much.

I think they could all be great on the backdoor but I’m not convinced that a print would be right in either the kitchen or dining room.

At the moment we have the shutters at the front of the house in the morning to keep the sun out. I’m going to try and mock the designs on the computer so we can get a better feeling.