Re-size our wooden venetian blinds

bridiej

Because of course, the blinds dont come in the same standard sizes as the windows, so some are slightly too wide (I assume we just measure and cut each slat individually?) and some are slightly too long.

How do we go about removing the "spare" slats at the bottom rather than have them sitting there looking untidy and gathering dust?

Thanks

sooz

i really wouldn't attempt to reduce the width of wooden blinds by cutting each slat individually - it would be so easy to do it wrong, and they'd look awful. for plastic blinds, you can get a blind cutter, that cuts each slat by the right amount, and makes the corners slightly rounded, but even this takes ages to do, and is hard to get exactly right. Even then, you should cut the same off each side, so that they do not look uneven.

could you hang your blinds outside your window recess, and then the exact width would not matter?

for the length - this should be fairly simple to do, and should be included in the instructions.

usually - it's something like this, cut all the strings about 3 slats BELOW where you want to blinds to end. Remove bottom slat and the caps on this which hide the knots, and discard the rest. Carefully disentangle the three slats you don't want, keeping the strings in the right places, then thread strings back through the bottom slat and tie. Usually, you need to tie the strings a few times to make sure the bottom slat is level - so don't tighten the knots too hard the first time.

bridiej

sooz wrote:

could you hang your blinds outside your window recess, and then the exact width would not matter?

for the length - this should be fairly simple to do, and should be included in the instructions.

Thanks for those instructions no, they werent in the packaging all that was in there was how to hang them....!

No, cant hang them out of the recess as they'd look stupid, will just have to try cutting some down maybe for a window where they wont be seen all the time and see how it looks.

navig8r

I made some narrower by pulling them up tight then binding both sides together with masking tape to make them a solid block, marked them and then cut through slowly with a chop saw but I guess you could use a hack saw..remove the tape and touch up with suitable paint or stain

Dave

tiff

navig8r wrote:

I made some narrower by pulling them up tight then binding both sides together with masking tape to make them a solid block, marked them and then cut through slowly with a chop saw but I guess you could use a hack saw..remove the tape and touch up with suitable paint or stain

Dave

My husband did the same and they were fine. To shorten them you just undo the bottom, remove as many slats as you need then do it up again.