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Managing Your Window Covering Project

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mishkat

On November 1, 2023

Managing Your Window Covering Project

This article highlights some common technical and project management considerations when planning a large window covering project where automation might be a requirement. It does not attempt to be an exhaustive guide, and every project has their own unique requirements that will need specific expect review and assessment.

Larger window covering project tend to fall into these 3 scenarios:

Window Coverings as part of Renovating Home
New built homes window coverings planning and electrical work
Automate existing window shades and drapery

Window Coverings as part of Renovation Your Home

Should you change your window coverings when renovating your home? There are several factors that would help you make that decision

Will you need to be taking your blinds and drapery before the renovation? Typically, this is required if you intend to repaint the walls and frames or you expect a lot of dust and dirt generated during the renovation. Also, if you need to change your window or change the window trims, you will need to take down the old blinds and drapery.
Are your current blinds and/or drapery partly damaged or worn out? The cost of repair might not be worth it and it might not be repairable at all.
Will your renovation result in a new interior design look for your home? The finish colour, texture, material, and style of the current blinds and/or drapes might clash with the new look of your renovated room or space. If the blinds or drapery is in good condition, you may be able to reuse it for another room, however, it may need to cut down/resized. This is something we can look at possibly doing – it depends on the product, condition and new size.
Are the windows being changed? Even when the window is being replace with a “same” size window, the actual finish size might be off by fractions of an inch resulting in misfit of current blinds to new windows. This is a bigger issue if your current window covering is a shutter as the panels won’t align and gaps will be very apparent. Unfortunately, in our experience, shutters typically cannot be reused when windows are replaced due to the slight size variation of the new windows.

New built homes window coverings planning and electrical work

When building a new home there is an opportunity to ask your builder to rough in wiring to the window to allow for hardwired motorized blinds or drapery tracks to be connected. This offer a permanent power source for your blinds, shades and drapery thus not need to use rechargeable motorized window covering that need to be recharged once or twice a year.

Permanent power source for window covering is especially important for high windows and hard to reach windows.

When should you first engage with a motorized window covering expert? For experience custom home builders and home owners, we typically get invited to an onsite visit before the dry wall is up. The purpose of our onsite visit is to identify the locations at or near the windows where the wiring or wall power outlet should be located. We also meet with the builder electrician to discuss the wiring and power specification requirements and decide who should supply the power supply to transform AC to DC power and identify the location where the wires should be home run and the power supply box be installed.

We also meet with the homeowner, to broadly discuss the type of window solutions they want for each window so we don’t overlook any potential electrical needs. Home automation systems they plan to use should be discussed at that time or shortly after so we can propose certain integration solutions with our motorized shades, and drapery.

Automate existing window shades and drapery

Automating shades

With the increase popularity of Home Automation and the proliferation of various Smart gadgets like speakers, sensors, etc., automation/motorization of window coverings is a topic virtually every customer of ours ask.

You may have manual operated blinds or window shades in your home currently, which are in good condition, but you want to enjoy the convenience of automation to control them. It doesn’t make sense to purchase brand new blinds just to have the automation feature. It gets a lot more expensive that way and it’s a complete waste of good blinds/shades that would end up in landfill.

What are the options to retrofit existing blinds or shade for automation?

For roller shades, zebra shades and even silhouette or horizontal sheer shades, there are affordable solutions that Trendy Blinds offer to customers. The commonality between these categories of shades is that they roll up around a tube at the top and is supported by brackets at the top enclosed in a cassette or ends with open shades with or without valance covers.

To access the feasibility and cost of retrofit, we just need some images and approx. size information of the shades in question. Thus, we can remotely determine if it is feasible and how much it will cost you.

The price to retrofit is broadly determined by the amount of replacement parts needed to retrofit the shades and the size and weight of the shades.

Next Steps – get a free virtual assessment to see if you can automate your existing shades. Email us at info@trendyblinds.com with subject line: Automate my existing shades or call us at 905-604-1222

Automating drapery

We offer a range of motorized drapery tracks from Somfy and other manufacturer brands with a choice of battery powered or plug in. Motorized drapery tracks can be wall or ceiling mounted and the projection for wall mounting can be adjusted. Existing Pinch Pleat, Ripplefold or Modern Wave Drapes should be able to work on these tracks with only minor simple modifications. Grommet drapery panels will not work.