mr. kate quickie: goodbye ugly vertical blinds DIY

this is a great quickie fix for all you renters out there! so many rental apartments come with those ugly vertical blinds that are a hassle to remove, store, and hang new curtains, holes in walls, etc… but here is your solution!

check out the AFTER of the whole room re-do here!

DO IT!:

  1. remove the plastic blind slats from the clips in the track
  2. clip in your own inexpensive fabric curtains to the clips… i got my simple white ones from Ikea and cut them to size for my window and hemmed them with iron-on hem tape.
  3. cover the ugly metal track with a pair of decorative panel curtains – i got mine from Cost Plus World Market – and fasten them with sticky velcro.
  4. cover the rest of the exposed metal track with the tie-back that comes with the curtain panels. done!
colorcurtains3
11/18
home

get color no paint part four: curtains
paint1
04/06
style

diy hand painted ugly shorts
Screen shot 2011-09-14 at 9.36.23 AM
09/14
home

living the mr. kate lifestyle
tags
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
  • http://www.facebook.com/heidi.m.sanchez Heidi Sanchez

    Lovely!  I could stand to look at my lifeless, cold blinds no longer.   Thank you kindly for the inspiration!

    • mrkate

      for sure! glad you like it! xx

  • Mmorale84

    Ahhh…. I love it. But I was wondering if you could take a closer pic of the top portion of where you actually covered the metal tracks. Also, are you still able to close your curtains if you would like some privacy?

    • mrkate

       I’ll try taking another photo and posting it – however, there are close-ups of the metal in the video you could pause and see more detail. The curtains are an opaque white so there is enough privacy, the outer decorative panels are just to look pretty, I can’t close them. But I can open and close the white ones that are on the track. thanks for your comment! xx

  • Caitlin

    I was immediately inspired by this idea and tried it out today but had terrible luck with it! The top portion of my curtains ended up looking a little cheap and I constantly open and close the curtains in the room I put them in which ends up in falling curtain everytime! I hope this works out better for anyone else trying it because if it is successful it is an awesome idea!

    • mrkate

       Hmm, it sounds like maybe your curtains weren’t thick enough to stay in the clips. I’s try adding some padding to the area of fabric that you are going to insert into the clips. You could use scrap fabric and iron on hem tape to add another layer along the top of the curtain panel. You can then disquise the top part with a little valance that hangs down to cover the track. good luck! xx

      • Sierra

        The undercurtain kept falling for me – I just put a horizontal safety pin – that way the metal piece helps keep it from falling out of the clip.

  • http://www.facebook.com/alyssamtucker Alyssa Tucker

    I really LOVED this idea! I tried it over the weekend and it works great. I got some curtains that light easily gets through because I like the design and just clipped them on over the vertical blinds instead of removing them completely. This makes it hard to open and close the blinds (they get stuck and the blinds fall off), but I don’t open them much anyway because I like privacy and don’t like glare on the tv so it works! Thanks!

  • Paige

    What am I supposed to do with all the blinds I took down?? This is a terrible solution for someone in a small apartment.

  • Carlo80

    I found this article whilst looking for other information on vertical blinds but I must say you can really see the difference. Might even pull mine down and start agin!

  • Randy

    There is a new company out there that makes custom made vertical blind slip covers. There beautiful and allows you to match your vertical blinds to your home decor. Check them out here: https://blindsofbeauty.com/

  • Sierra

    I undertook this project after two years of unhappily staring at the ugly vertical blinds in my rental. I did three windows and it took me two half days. Overall, the instructions worked out well – however, the cloth has a tendency to fall out of the clips and the velcro was completely insufficient to hold up the weight of the curtains I have hanging from the rack at the top. I ended up using a bunch of safety pins to hold it together, but it’s functional. If you hate your vertical blinds, just do it!