Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

| By | | 241 Comments

Adding Bamboo Blinds To The Office

Notice anything different when you peek into the office from the dining room?

Shades Final From Dining

Hint: check out the window region.

Shades Before

We got these guys at Home Depot for $22 each (they’re 35″ bamboo blinds with the name Miranda on them if that helps identify ’em in the store) with the hopes that they would finish off the windows in the office and tie into the thick wooden desktop and the jute rug that we have in there. In our first house we had bamboo blinds in a bunch of rooms and always planned to bring them into this house as well (we mention them a lot in our Listy McListerson posts like this one) – just for the awesome texture they add.

When it came to installation, they had little metal ring hooks at the top of them, but we were going for an inside mounted look and those ring hook hanging things were messing with the “perfectly fitted” effect that we wanted, so we just used needle-nosed pliers to pop those hanging rings off the top, and few screws through the wooden brace piece at the head of the shade (4 spaced out equally) to secure them right into the window trim instead.

Shades Installation

The result is a nice polished look (it’s amazing how window treatments in general can take a room from “in process” to “looks pretty complete to me”) and the wood tones tie into the desktop just as well as we hoped.

Shades Final Vert

Eventually getting the floors refinished in a slightly darker tone (like the desktop) would be the ultimate dream…

For now we’re just enjoying the textured-meets-tailored vibe that they add to the room.

Shades Horiz Straight

And it’s a total bonus that they tie into the woven chairs and the dining table in the adjoined dining room.

Shades Final From Dining

Anyone else adding blinds, shades, or curtains? Whenever someone asks me about the change that surprises me the most (by making such an unexpected difference) I always say it’s curtains and blinds. It’s weird how a naked window with sun flooding through it can be so pretty that you think it doesn’t even need anything else, but then when you finally slap some breezy curtains or textured bamboo blinds up there you end up thinking “oh man, that makes me wanna dance.”

Comments

  1. bethany says

    Wow… What timing. I was just headed to Home Depot tonight to buy almost the exact same thing! We were looking at the Roll Up kind (not the Roman Shade). Is there a reason why you picked the Roman Shade vs Roll Up?

    Reply

  2. Stephanie says

    When the blind is up, where is your pull cord? I don’t see a blind cleat or place to tie back the cord… Just curious!

    Reply

  4. Suzanne says

    Perfect for tying those dining room chairs in! I actually like the lighter floors you guys have. It brings out the different tones in the other wood surfaces in the room.

    Reply

  8. Katie Waddell says

    Love these! I just got these installed in my boys’ room last week. While I was reading this post my two year came up and pointed at the pic of the blinds in the package on the floor and said ‘Hey, I have those!’ I guess they are quite memorable! ;)

    Reply

  9. Mimi says

    Totally stealing your roman shade idea & making them for our for kitchen. Fabric ordered & on its way. We had Bamboo shades in our bedroom windows for years until a friend told me they were see through. Yikes!!

    Reply

  10. emily says

    i bought similar blinds for my house too…i love the texture they give to my room, but they are also so clean-lined. and, i feel the same way about adding window coverings…i’m also anxious that I am going to ruin the beautiful light in the room….turns out it always just enhances it.

    Reply

  11. Catherine says

    Looks great! Definitely ties in the office to the dining room.
    I did the same one in our kitchen which overlooks a wall so no privacy issues and throughout the rest of our tiny house we did your blind/curtains combo from your first house. So cost effective, I did get a heavier curtain but still from Ikea, and they really suit the house. The blinds have the privacy liner attached, from Lowes, so they do the trick. Thanks for all the ideas! I have no imagination but am a good copier!

    Reply

  12. Amanda says

    LOVE this! I’m dying to incorporate some bamboo blinds in a few places in our house – our problem is that our windows are all giant and we only have one or two that are even possibly small enough for this. Sad!

    Reply

  13. Katie says

    Yes, I am hanging blinds, shades AND curtains in our newly renovated house … my poor bank account. Anyway, I can’t find an inexpensive roman shade option for our front and back doors that have glass … any ideas? My only option seems to be to DIY one — I found a great tutorial but I’m not the best DIYer for that kind of thing.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Hmm, have you checked homedepot.com (they have lots of sizes they don’t have in the store and will ship free to your house). I think there are some door lengths that should work!

      xo
      s

  14. Erin R. says

    We’ve been working on window treatments recently for our house too. We’ve been here for 3+ years and are just now getting most of the windows done.

    Reply

  15. Krissy says

    We have bamboo blinds in the living room/kitchen and in the office. I love them.

    And speaking of updated window treatments! We just switched out the ivory curtains in our bedroom for a dark, chocolatey brown color. They make the room look a lot richer, I’m loving it!

    Reply

  17. Autumn Beach says

    LOVE what that shade did for that room! I thought it looked great before. Never would have guessed it needed anything else. But wow! We have the same shades in our living area/kitchen except we have the Providence. Not quite the same ring as Miranda, but I remember thinking that they were indeed providence when I found them. A look I liked without the custom price!

    Reply

  18. R says

    Here is the Ellen article that someone referenced in the earlier comments. It’s actually from an old Architectural Digest, not the current Elle Decor article. I read excerpts from the ED article in People mag and followed a link to this article…at which point I thought, “Those look just like the YHL chairs!” So I thought you guys might like to see it!
    http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20534321,00.html

    Reply

  20. Erica says

    I wish it were so easy as to go to Home Depot and buy blinds! :-( My windows are too long to buy pretty much anything ready-made, and I can’t afford custom made. They didn’t happen to have those bamboo blinds in a really long length, like 78″+? :-) (It’s been so long since I’ve actually tried looking that I forgot how long my windows actually are… pathetic.)

    Reply

  23. Stephanie says

    Looks great. I really love your office chairs, they’re so bright and happy.

    My living room window has blinds on it now but they don’t let in any light and you have to press a button on the top of them for them to raise. They are probably riduclously expensive but they’re ugly and I hate them. I’m thinking of replacing with white wooden blinds so I can let some light into the house without having to open a shade and let the whole neighborhood see in my window.(And every time I open them I will yell “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”)

    Reply

  24. Amy says

    Seriously, where was this post a year ago when I bought those exact same blinds and returned them because I hated those hooks??!! Yet again, your ingenuity never ceases to amaze us…LOVE the look of the blinds in the office window and love everything you guys do! (oh and your book is pretty kick-ass too)=0)

    Reply

  25. Carrie C says

    Love how the rooms seem to evolve. Wanted to comment on your future plans for darker floors. I love that look and when we remodeled our current home we decided to try dark floors to see if we liked them. It was one of many things we thought it would be good to test run prior to making commitments in the future forever house. I find them SO HARD TO KEEP CLEAN!! I mean impossible-could sweep and mop everyday hard. And we have one dog and no kids…for a point of reference.

    We went with pre-finished hardwood and I think site finished would have made a big difference. Also the rough hewn wood seems to hide dust much better. Just something to consider:)

    Reply

  26. Jennifer says

    Great choice guys! I am looking at window treatments for my sunroom. I’ve thought about bamboo blinds, but always worry about installation. You all make it look so easy! And, the bamboo texture really does tie in the desk and the dining room table from across the hall.

    Reply

  27. Jane says

    I have a single bamboo blind (set of blinds?) that I recycled (stole) from a house I rented a while back with a bunch of dudes who wouldn’t mind (notice). The only problem is I’m inept when it comes to opening and closing blinds with those little spring loaded “pull one way to start and another to stop but oh no we won’t tell you which side is which” doodads, so I broke it, like, immediately. Anyhoo, what I did was mount one of those cheapo double hooks on the window sash and wrapped the cord around it sailor-like (like figure eights or infinity signs depending on how you mount it) to hold it open pr closed and it worked out great!

    Not that you would break your blinds (because you are professionals), but just in case.

    Reply

  28. Sassafras says

    Yup, we moved here in August of 2012 and were so pooped (second move in two years) that we just left the windows with their plantation blinds alone. Just this month we’ve been slowly hanging curtains and drapes. My favs are the artsy ones in my studio which are actually two full size sheets of the same pattern (Picasso prints) that over time were bought at two different thrift stores. Score and double score!!! What are the chances? I dunno, but am glad that I kept checking the sheet section at those stores. You can imagine how fast and furiously I ran to the checkout with my find. :D

    Reply

  29. melissa says

    So I’m a little late to the party here, BUT…these blinds just got delivered and I’m really excited to get them up. I’m running into a problem when I try to install as you’ve described. When the wooden top piece is positioned in the window frame to accommodate screws for an inside mount, the metal cord pull mechanisms are now oriented horizontally, not vertically as they would if hung using the rings on top. So not only are they in the way of the blind fitting cleanly inside the window frame, but they probably won’t work to raise and lower the blind properly. Did you guys do something special to work around this? Fingers crossed you can help!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We removed the metal hanging hooks that were on the top of the shade (which got in the way of it sitting flush inside the window) – we just used a needle nosed pliers to pop them off and cut the cord that was tied to them, which didn’t affect the mechanism. Then we could screw them up from below like we showed in the pics without anything getting in the way up top :)

      xo
      s

  30. Jeff says

    I have the same issue as Melissa. I think your installation directions may be missing a step here.

    When you twist the piece of wood 90 degrees to allow for drilling from below, the 2 “metal cord pull mechanisms“ (the pieces of metal that the cord attaches to on the inside, not the eyelets on the outside) are now sticking out horizontally rather then facing down. So in order to open the shade, you would need to pull the cord horizontally (toward the wall) rather than vertically (toward the floor).

    Did you have to remove these “metal cord pull mechanisms” (there must be an official name for these!) and reattach in the right orientation?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Sorry they’re giving you trouble. I think ours are doing what you describe – the metal cord pull mechanisms are sort of angled back towards the window – but in our experience it didn’t hinder the cord pulling action very much. We’re still able to pull our cords down to adjust the shade. They’re not the smoothest shades I’ve ever adjusted, but since we pretty much leave ours in a fixed position it hasn’t been a problem for us.

      -John

  31. Tara says

    I have been going back and forth on whether to do similar blinds in our family room. I love the look but the room is rather small & dark and I worry that these blinds will block the light further, even if I leave them permanently open. Do you by any chance know how much overhang these blinds have in the completely open position? I can maybe simulate that with butcher paper to see how much light gets blocked! Thanks so much!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      They only hang out as much as our windows do (they’re flush with the front of our window but don’t overhang). Maybe hold up a box of aluminum foil or something since it’s around the size of them when fully open?

      xo,
      s

    • Tara says

      Oh sorry I should have been more specific!! I meant the LENGTH of the shade that covers the window in the completely open position. Basically the top of the shade and the top of the window would be flush and then there’s a part of the shade that will always hang down even if it is completely open. Does that make sense?? I guess it would be around a foot or so…but was hoping for a more specific measurement from you if possible!! Thanks again!!

  32. Jennifer says

    Did you have to trim the shades to siz? I looked at these shades at Home Depot, but they are 2″ wider then my window and twice as long as I need. I was wondering if you had any tips for trimming.

    Reply

  33. Julie says

    I know you’ve said you don’t raise or lower the bamboo blinds at all in the office space, but now that you’ve added them in another room, do you end up doing it? I’ve been checking out the same HD blinds and am worried about their ability to stand up to daily raising/lowering, since they would be going into a sunroom.

    Thanks!

    Reply

  34. Bonnie says

    Hi!

    You are SO right, and it took me ten years of home ownership to learn it! After our first major renovation project last year (not DYI since hubs and I will divorce if we ever try another), I installed window treatments for the very first time ever. Bamboo blinds (also from a big box store and cut to fit while i waited) in our newly done guest room to provide depth, texture and, of course, privacy; and sheer flowy drapes for our newly redone Master right above in the house. Both are perfect and amazing. The bamboo shades provide exactly what I was looking for, and the drapes, in addition to a modicum of privacy, give the over-large room a coziness and softness it did not have before. We just love lounging across the bed on the sunny weekend afternoons between errands or events and enjoying the light play through the drapes and the leaves in the trees outside.

    Just discovered your blog. Love every bit of your design style, your prose, and your projects. Keep up the fun work!

    Reply

  35. Jill says

    Hi! Questions about Miranda bamboo shades from Home Depot… I get how to install without using eyelets for inside mount, but any ideas if you want to hang this shade above the frame without seeing hardware? Or, do you suggest I return the Miranda and purchase a different brand?
    Thanks for the help!!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I think you’d have to get a different brand if you wanted to hide that hardware since it seems like the only way to hang it would be for that to show.

      xo
      s

Stuff We Love

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *