“What kind of blinds or shades should I install in the garage windows?” is one of the questions I’ve been stalling over for quite some time. Next, I have to figure out ceiling-mounted lights.
We have honeycomb-style shades in the house, and have had good experiences with them so far. Actually, I still have temporary paper shades in my office, also because of decision laziness.
But fabric seemed like a big mistake for the garage. What about bugs? Would spiders make nests inside of the honeycomb structure?
What about sawdust? If or when I cleaned the shades, how much effort would it take to remove sawdust from the fabric?
With hard-panel shades, cleanup should be easy. Plus, there’s the angle adjustment to let in more or less light. Raising and lowering the shades might be a slight hassle, but if I can reach the window controls to unlock and open and close it, lifting and lowering the shades shouldn’t be any trouble.
What size to go with? Where to buy them from?
Ultimately, as part of my “I’m sick of delaying things” workshop cleanup process, I measured up and made some quick decisions.
I would be inside-mounting the shades, and so I measured the inner width of the window – 32″. At Home Depot, they have “faux wood blinds” with 2″ slats that seem to be well-reviewed. The 32″ blinds have a nominal width of 31.5″, which would leave some clearance on both sides. Seemed like a good idea.
I bought the blinds, and they arrived about a week later, more than a week earlier than expected.
They were easy to install, and the instructions show how the length can be shortened if or when I desire it, as the shortest off-the-shelf length of 36″ is too long for my garage windows.
The slats definitely don’t look like wood, they look like textured plastic.
There are other sizes, with larger and smaller slats widths, and other brands including Bali and Levolor, but I didn’t feel I needed custom blinds for garage windows. A perfect width seemed good enough, and now I know I can also custom-adjust the blinds to the perfect length if that ever strikes my fancy.
There are other non-faux-wood slat options, but I went with a high-review-count product. Among the brand names I don’t know, I might as well go with one that seems popular, right?
“Home Decorators” does not seem to be a Home Depot-exclusive brand, but this particular style is said to be an “exclusive.”
The included screws were tough to drive, meaning my pilot hole wasn’t large enough. I could or should have subbed-in self-drilling Spax screws, but I didn’t have pan-head screws of the correct length on-hand.
Long story short, I’ve got new window shades up in the garage, and should provide for increased privacy.
These shades are pretty basic, but also cord-free and better-looking than the aluminum blinds I had cut to size at the home center for our first apartment.
If you’ve been putting off garage window coverings for the longest time as I have, these left me with a positive install experience. I’ll have to see how well they hold up over time, but I can’t imagine what could go wrong. There are more then 12,000 reviews at Home Depot’s website, with most being 5 or 4 star ratings.
Pricing varies, with the 32″ width (31.5″ nominal) x 36″ length being $33 each.
