Blinds - How difficult to install?

Alex_L

Alex_L

Alex_L

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18 Oct 2002
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We live in a an east/west facing flat in London with big floor to ceiling glass windows in and whilst all the sunshine is great, it wakes us up and can make watching the TV tricky as well as making the rooms hot in the summer.

Our preference is to replace the curtains with blinds, and we've seen duette honeycomb fabric which look to fit what we want in terms of reducing glare/blackout and keeping the sun out.

We had a slightly long visit from Thomas Sanderson who after 400 different discounts eventually said it would be about 5k for duette blinds ( apparently 10k 'list'. This seems expensive to me (albeit I have no rationale for this) which makes me think about doing it ourselves given I've seen you can buy the blinds made to measure and fit yourself. We're also getting some other quotes from similar companies that provide an all in service to see if that's in the right ball park.

Questions are:

1. Can anyone recommend good blind companies in London?
2. How hard are blinds to fit? (we'd be ceiling mounting outside the window recess into plasterboard ceilings) - bear in mind that my DIY are pretty basic :D.
 
A duette blind? is that just a brand of Roller blind?

5k is obscene. I have literally know idea how that cost can be justified.
 
How many windows and how big?
I've just had an entire 4 bed detached house fitted out by a local company with a mixture of rollers, vertical and wooden venetians. Some of the windows are quite big (one corner two wall L shaped window) and one kind of conservatory window that sticks out of the house by 2 feet (so two sides and long approx 10ft width with french doors) and the grand total was £2100. I don't know of the material you mentioned but cant image it being "that" expensive.

Dark wood venetians are pretty good at blocking out light.

Have a look at somewhere like blinds-2go (or whatever they're called) for the actual cost of the blinds without fitting and decide for yourself whether the deal being offered by the local co is any good. It won't take long to fit them - about 4 hours for the detached house I mentioned.
 
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We used http://www.247blinds.co.uk/

Pick your style and measure them up yourself following their guide

Had ours for a year and theyre great even on the one window which is as big as they make at around 2200mm wide by 2000mm drop

We went with the eco wood style and they look great

Only issue we had was the courier damaged 2 in transit but a couple of quick photos and an email the dropped off new ones and collected the damaged ones
 
Not that difficult to fit however I had a few venetian blinds fitted 5 years ago because it was only about £300 max all in.

If it was expensive I'd have done it myself lol.

My nana cuts and fits her own blinds so when I say it's not difficult - it's not lol.

Fit them in all the rooms you need and anything like a bedroom fit a curtain rail and curtains to block out all light and sound proof it better?
 
Heh you're in London.... Lovely jubbly...

I'll do it for a special one price of £2,500.

Should be in and out of your place in 20 minutes (time includes complementary cup of tea :)
 
I'm not much good at DIY and I found it quite painful fitting roller blinds i.e. getting the length right, they also fell down and had to screw it back in a few times and now basically the recess is a bit of a mess with multiple holes so probably need to refill the plaster somehow as there isn't really a good spot to screw into on one side now.

Then again if people are paying thousands for fitted blinds maybe it is better that I've gone a crap job myself.
 
Www.tuiss.co.uk

Pick the highest quality blind with the highest quality mechanism you want, spend about £100 per blind and get it installed by any DIY handyman. We did 9 windows/blinds in our central London house for just under £800 fitted and most people think the blinds cost us 5k+

It's all a bit of a joke really

I also did the measuring myself. Just take 3 measurements for each window recess where the blind will go. One at the top, one in the middle and one at the bottom and order to fit the smallest measurement. It's that simple. If you're handy with DIY you can install them yourself too. It's basically 4 screws in the mechanism straight into the wall

P.s. The blinds can be ordered with blackout lining to stop all light coming through
 
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Not difficult at all, Surely you must know a fair DIY mate that could do it for you rather than you getting ripped the **** off.
 
Has anyone fitted perfect fit blinds? I really like these and a found a place where you can order them and fit them yourself, I reckon that'll save me £300-400 over getting someone in to do it.
 
Kearney_1988 said:
We used http://www.247blinds.co.uk/

Pick your style and measure them up yourself following their guide

Had ours for a year and theyre great even on the one window which is as big as they make at around 2200mm wide by 2000mm drop

We went with the eco wood style and they look great

Only issue we had was the courier damaged 2 in transit but a couple of quick photos and an email the dropped off new ones and collected the damaged ones
Click to expand...

+1 - I bought some eco wood Venetian blinds from them and they were absolutely spot on. Quite a big window but did it on my own and took me 35 minutes maybe, including getting the tools from the shed, getting the hoover setup, setting up drill and locating the ladder.
 
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Skiddley said:
We ordered a few from these guys last December. Awful service, delays, excuses etc, and then the product. Let's just say, you get what you pay for.
Click to expand...

I bought 2 wooden blinds from them and I cant really see an issue with them. They seem good quality.

Whats been the issue with yours?
 
I will admit, most of the ones I got were the eco wood. We did get a roller blind but was aware I wasn't going to get premium quality for a cut price

Venetian ones are great though
 
scorza said:
Has anyone fitted perfect fit blinds? I really like these and a found a place where you can order them and fit them yourself, I reckon that'll save me £300-400 over getting someone in to do it.
Click to expand...

Replying to myself but having just fitted a perfect fit blind I can confirm that it's reasonably easy (if I can do it, you probably can). Only mistake I made was not removing the window handle and putting in one of the supplied spacers first, put an unfortunate scratch on the blind frame opening the window :( Other than that, I'm really pleased - cost me £60 for one window, saved me £50 fitting it myself.
 
kaktus said:
Www.tuiss.co.uk

Pick the highest quality blind with the highest quality mechanism you want, spend about £100 per blind and get it installed by any DIY handyman. We did 9 windows/blinds in our central London house for just under £800 fitted and most people think the blinds cost us 5k+

It's all a bit of a joke really

I also did the measuring myself. Just take 3 measurements for each window recess where the blind will go. One at the top, one in the middle and one at the bottom and order to fit the smallest measurement. It's that simple. If you're handy with DIY you can install them yourself too. It's basically 4 screws in the mechanism straight into the wall

P.s. The blinds can be ordered with blackout lining to stop all light coming through
Click to expand...

These guys have come recommended from our Neighbour and will be ordering our venetian blinds from them.
 
We ordered our blinds from blinds2go and they were very reasonably priced and then asked a local blind company to install them when they were on site preparing the blinds in the show home at our development.

The fitter commented on the quality and he thought they looked more expensive than the ones he had installed in the show home (despite being very similar) and was shocked when we told them they were a 3rd of the price.
 
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