I ordered new roman shades for our kitchen last weekend and we spent yesterday afternoon putting them up.  The roman shades I ordered were the Cape Cod shades from JCPenney in the Golden Oak color.  Because we were concerned about keeping the appearance consistent between these shades and others on the front of our house, I also ordered privacy liners from Target.

The privacy liner is velcroed to the top of the shade

Installing the privacy liners on the back of the roman shades was the first thing we did yesterday.  It was pretty simple.  We laid the shades out on the floor with the back facing up and then placed the liner over the top of the shade so that it was positioned how we’d want it when it was attached.  The liners are just a white sheet of fabric with battons at various intervals down the length.  Based on some feedback I’d read on the Target website and a comment in the instructions that came with them, I decided to iron them before attaching them to the shade to give them a less wrinkled appearance from the outside.  The liners are then attached to the back of the roman shade with velcro at the top of the shade and some plastic clips along the length of the shade.  The instructions said to attach the velcro to the top of the

Plastic clips attach the liner to the shade.

back of the shade and then secure it with some tacks that were provided.  Our shade didn’t have a good place to attach the velcro on the back of the shade, so we opted to attach it to the top of the headrail instead.  We also decided not to tack the velcro in because positioning it on the headrail seemed like it would keep the liner in place just fine.  The rest of the liner then attached to the shades with the plastic clips provided, which clipped the liner to the strings on the back of the shade at various intervals.  It only took about 5 minutes a shade to install the liner and I think it was worth it.  They look about like white sheets from the outside, but they do make the window treatments look more neutral, so I think it was worth it to put them up – I think we’d notice seeing the wooden color from outside a lot more and not like it.

The kitchen windows with privacy liners on the shades.

The mounting brackets for the roman shades.

Installation of the shades wasn’t too bad either.  We did an outside mount, but wound up not mounting the shades too much higher than the windows.  I was initially concerned about the fact that the shades were a standard 72″ long while our windows are only 53″ long, but it turns out that it looks pretty natural for roman shades to not be lowered completely, so we decided just to go with it and not try to shorten them or mount them higher to compensate.  The blinds are hung with two brackets that mount into the window trim and provide bolts for the shade to be secured to using a wing nut.  The brackets and nuts provide some room for adjustments as far as centering the shade on the window and even straightening it a little.  Overall, installation of the blinds was pretty easy.  It took longer than we thought it should (as always), but there wasn’t anything difficult about it.

The new kitchen shades!

As part of the installation, we had to remove the curtain we’d had up in the kitchen before because the supports for the curtain rod were in the way of where the blinds needed to be mounted, so they haven’t gone back up yet.  I think we still need a valance of some type, but I’m planning to get another curtain rod that can be mounted a little higher (probably above the windows) so it won’t be in the way of the shades.  I need to find something that has enough clearance for the blinds to be underneath the valance and not interfere with it.  We’re also limited because the windows are right up next to the corner of the room and most of the curtain rods that are long enough to span all three windows have pretty big finials on each end that won’t fit.  I found these on the Lowe’s website that I kind of like, but there’s not much information posted about them, so I need to go to the store to see if I can figure out how big the finials actually are and how much clearance the curtain rod will give for the blinds:

New curtain rod for the kitchen valance?

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2 thoughts on “The Kitchen Blinds are Installed!

  1. Kim says:

    Hi,
    I like how your blinds came out. I just bought some wood wovens from Smith and noble, and didn’t buy privacy liners because we are on the 2nd floor and people cannot see inside. My husband however does not like that he can see outside at night. I was considering the liners at Target but none of them fit my 68 x 69 window. Would you recommend buying the liner that is 52″ wide or 71″? From what I understand the length is adjustable, but not the width.

  2. Sarah says:

    If you are good with a sewing machine (I’m not), I would bet it wouldn’t be too much of a chore to cut some off of the width of the Target liners. They’re just a white sheet that’s hemmed all the way around with a strip of velcro at the top and small dowels with strips to attach the plastic clips to running width-wise across the liner at various intervals. So, I guess you could probably cut a few inches off the width of each of the dowels and the liner itself and then hem up the side again and it would be fine.

    It might be more work than it’s worth, but I think I’d probably try cutting some off of the wider one rather than going with the one that’s too narrow. The material does seem like it would stretch a little, but not enough to make up a difference of 16 inches in the width. If you get the wider one and don’t do anything to cut off the extra material, I think you would see it on each side of the shade, but depending on how the shade is mounted and if you have curtains in front of it, it might not be very noticeable.

    I’m don’t know how much light is coming through your window, but for what it’s worth, I’m not sure that the Target liners will make that much of a difference. They will make it so that you can’t see out as clearly, but you’ll probably still be able to see lights and/or shapes through them. The fabric is really too thin to provide a lot of privacy …

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