A Quick Tip: Making Your Own Custom Blinds

I have been looking for wood blinds to put up in the den windows that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg and the best price I found was Ikea.  Ikea is a mother ship, they seriously have everything.  They had the exact color I had been looking for and so many sizes, it seemed that way from the way they were displayed. As I cruised the aisles over and over I realized they really only had three or four sizes showcased many times over so it looked like billions of measurements were available, not the case.  Womp, womp.  What to do?  The wheels started turning and a little heart bubble popped over my head with a picture of my new compound miter saw (I should name her I think).
I went home with the plan to cut the blinds to my specifications instead of trying to find something more expensive.  It took me a few days to gather the courage to do this.  I measured and thought about it.  I was a little scared that when I made the cut that shards of wood would come up and slice me so I think that image is what created my anxiety and hesitation.  I also wasn't sure about how well the wood would weather the wrath of my saw but I kept reminding myself that if this didn't work, it was only a $25 mistake and sometimes we have to learn what works and what doesn't the hard way.

Two days I ago I woke up with a ton of courage and ran to the basement before my bravery withered away.  I am very happy to report that nothing sharp and dangerous flew up and sliced me and the blinds look great too!

Here are my tips if you are going to do this at home:

1.  Measure, measure, measure.  It all depends how big you want your blinds of course.  I decided I wanted mine to cover the window frame but still leave a little piece of the window sill sticking out (more on this when I show you the blinds hanging).

2.  Once you have marked where you want to cut, compress the blind slats together and tape them with painters tape.  This helps to keep everything secure when you make your cuts.

3.  You are probably wondering what I did with the metal piece at the top of the blind.  I bought some tin snips for about $10 and they cut through the metal like butter.  The cut wasn't perfect but this part will be hidden anyway.  This was much less intimidating than buying a metal blade for my saw and trying to cut the metal with sparks flying all over the basement etc.  We will save that for another day...when the saw is outside and won't set my house on fire.

4.  Once you cut the metal there is an open area for the saw to cut through the slats.  I highly recommend taping right along the cut you plan to make.  I cut one side with the tape along the cut I planned to make and everything was perfect.  Like I said nothing flying around and a perfect, clean cut.

The second side was a result of my laziness, I didn't feel like like re-taping the cut line and this is what the floor looked like after:

I am not sure if there was a poof of air from the saw or what but these little pieces did fly across the room!  They stayed low to the ground so I laughed at the sight of it rather than shaking in my boots.  Moral of this story?  Tape where you plan to cut, these pieces will stay together :)

Make sure to cut slow and voila!

5. Last step is to hang them so stay tuned for the before and after next week!  I will also be using stain to try and match the freshly cut portion of the blind back to the original color they came in.

There you have it!  Now you can go out there and have no fear if you need to cut these blinds to a specific size for your room!  Anyone have a simple project that you find yourself hesitating with for some reason?  Let us know, we would love to try and help!

See you swoon,