A Blind Leading the...

Today's job around the house was to fit a blackout blind in Darling Child's room. Since we moved in his room has been sporting the latest in cardboard chic at the window - quite a good look, non?
Non, it is in fact a terrible look, especially with those toys shoved up against the cardboard to stop it falling down. What bad parents we are, making our no.1 son sleep in such squalid conditions.



And without cardboard:

We had the option of trimming the blind (think hacksaw, scissors, a steady hand and the ability to cut in a straight line) to fit within the window recess or not trimming it and fitting it outside. We went for the easy (read: lazy) option and chose to fit it outside the recess, figuring that if it didn't work (ie too much light still came in at the edges of the blind), we could always go for the more difficult, recessed option at a later date (ie, high summer when we risk hearing calls of 'Daddy, daddy' when the sun comes up at 4am [note, DC is a Daddy's boy - he rarely calls for Mummy first thing in the morning; I'm not sure whether to be sad or glad...])
Luckily, when the house was being torn apart by the builders, we had the foresight to ask them to leave up the wood strips that had been fitted by the previous owner in most rooms for attaching curtain rails; this made life a lot, lot simpler as it meant screwing into wood and not brick. So simple in fact that hubby didn't even need to get his power drill out, he was able to get the screws into the wood with a regular screwdriver.

After holding the blind in against the wooden strip to assess and mark out where each end plate had to go, it was simply a job of fitting them both using the two screws suppliedthen clipping the cord fixture in place and slotting the blind into the two end plates. Oh, and we had to unwind the blind and wind it back up the other way so that it unwound from the back rather than the front, if that makes sense?
And while hubby had his screwdriver to hand, he also fitted this sweet little coat hook that I'd bought last December from Anthropologie in New York (and which can now be bought in the UK and by mail order) - now DC has somewhere to hang his dressing gown.

Et voila, 30 minutes later and DC had a much, much nicer room. It does look like a lot of light is coming in around the blind, but these photos were taken on (an unseasonably) sunny day at 2pm, not normally a time when DC would be asleep in his room.
Now it's just a case of finding a neater, nicer way to store his toys. But whatever mess the room may be in, at least it's better than it was six months ago...