Nice people thread part 5 - nicely does it

PasturesNew

michaels wrote: »

Unfortunately our windows are wider than that and I like the 50mm slats as they take up much less space when pulled up. PN is incorrect though, the ones we have do look pretty cheap but they do the job. Also went for made to measure as i think it is quite hard to get a really good finish if you cut them down yourself (have done it in the past).

I had a house full of blinds. I had very long drop windows, with bays and different widths of windows across the house - took me quite a while to find one supplier that supplied all widths in a super-long length. I managed to get the whole lot for just a bit over £100 and then I got a good local maintenance-type man to fit the lot in one hour for £25. I was unwrapping, he was putting them up - top quality job too.

The company supply through dealers, not direct - I found them on ebay by searching for white venetian.

silvercar

I have a friend who paid over £2000 for lounge curtains. All swags and tails and pelmets and dress curtains. Looks good, but not amazing.

Good place for poles is Argos.
In terms of £ per sq metre of material, IKEA has bargains. Then you can make adjustments to make them look less IKEA-ish.

My study has black venetion blinds and white walls. Effective with black glass desk and gloss black cupboards.

For short windows, where the blind is outside the window frame, I get the venetion fixed high above the window, so when "up" the bottom of the blind is just over the window frame. It gives the impression the window is much taller.

lostinrates

silvercar wrote: »

I have a friend who paid over £2000 for lounge curtains. All swags and tails and pelmets and dress curtains. Looks good, but not amazing.
.

Fwiw i do not want swags, pelmets or anything, quite the opposite really, i feel too you g still for swags Plus, they tend to block the light out. but i do like curtains that are over long and puddle on the floor. Even though the bottoms risk getting grubby. Its just the fabrics i love happen to be in the main fairly pricey. One of the main differences in 'expensive' curtains is that they tend to hang better being well weighted and interlined, but while i have never weighted anything i have sewn blinds and curtains with interlining in. Its beena long time, but i don't see why I would not be able to do it now. It mioght take longer as i get tired, and i will have to make sure my measurements are perfect, i used to check everything all the way through, but won't be able to manage that nowadays, but if i know my measurements are right i should be able to sew straight lines.

Headers are a separate issue. I have only ever donw plain ones, but i don't know if i should do these fancy pinch pleated ones. Of the 'fancy' types i think these are the nicest. Goblet ones look too......posed, and the inverted box pleats too sleek. So it will either be bog standard gathered or triple pinch pleats here i think.

Wheezy_2

lostinrates wrote: »

As we are talking about languages, i wonder what nice poeple would like to speak but they don't or what they think would make a good second (third or fourth or whatever) language.

I would like to learn Spanish and started courses funded by my first UK employer. But then got made redundant, so that was the end of that.
Me llamo Wheezy.

silvercar

When I started my work, I thought of learning italian. I am so bad at learning foreign languages adn the italians I deal with all speak fluent english that I never bothered.

I did a few lessons of ancient Greek at school. Just to clarify that I was young and very stupid at the time, before I explain that I was shocked to find that when you translated the greek letters into the English alphabet the words were still 'in foreign' and needed to be translated again.

Is moving from a foreign alphabet to the equivalent english letters called transliteration? I can do that from hebrew to english. Then don't know what the words mean, but it helps when reading place name signs.
OH did russian O level, just because those were the text books available in his year at school. He understands a smattering and can transliterate.

lostinrates

Wheezy wrote: »

I would like to learn Spanish and started courses funded by my first UK employer. But then got made redundant, so that was the end of that.
Me llamo Wheezy.

Hola wheezy. ?donde pongo el westie?


I used to love saying 'donde pongo'. I used to ask where things were just so i could say pongo.

I have to admit, while i find spanish fun i do not find it a particularly beautiful language. Unlike german, which is an utter mystery to me (all i can say in that is das ist mein tochter) which when i first hear it spoken by my cousins by marriage suddenly changed to being beautiful in a way i had nevyer imagined. Don't want to learn german though.

lostinrates

silvercar wrote: »

When I started my work, I thought of learning italian. I am so bad at learning foreign languages adn the italians I deal with all speak fluent english that I never bothered.



Is moving from a foreign alphabet to the equivalent english letters called transliteration? I can do that from hebrew to english. Then don't know what the words mean, but it helps when reading place name signs.
OH did russian O level, just because those were the text books available in his year at school. He understands a smattering and can transliterate.

Dh had to learn some hebrew for his bar mitzvah. He has forgotten (probably wilfully, the whole bar mitzvah issue caused huge family upset in his household) all of it. I think its a very, very great shame.

Generali

Wheezy wrote: »

Me llamo Wheezy.

You're an asthmatic Llama?

I used to sit next to a Spanish bloke at work in London who used to speak Spanish pretty much all day on the phone. After about 4-6 months I worked out it was basically French with a dodgy accent. They're rude beggers those Spaniards!

LydiaJ

My house has vertical blinds everywhere - the previous owners left them but took all the curtains and most of the poles. The trouble with vertical blinds is that I find they aren't very robust. The problem is with the string along the bottom: bobbly string with little clippy bits every few inches that attach to the bottoms of the vertical strips. This conversation has just prompted me to do a quick google, and yes, I can get new string for them. Not sure how many of the blinds I will bother keeping once the curtains are all up, though, so won't bother getting replacement string just yet.

On the window over the stairs we have a Roman blind. It's a bit of a faff trying to let it down to close it. It's a long way up - the mechanism is a good four feet higher than my arm can reach, and the string hangs down behind the blind. This means that when we try to pull it outwards to unlatch the mechanism, the weight of the blind pulls it down and alters the angle, so it takes lots of attempts to get the thing to unlatch. I think a Roman blind is probably the best kind of thing to have at that window, but only if we can work out some way of being able to raise and lower it easily. It's not the kind of window you could leave uncovered in the evenings: it looks onto the stair void, directly across to the landing and the bathroom door, and it looks out onto the street, so unless the blind is closed, the whole street can see anyone coming in or out of the bathroom, or crossing the landing from DS's bedroom to mine and DD's.

lostinrates

Generali wrote: »

about 4-6 months I worked out it was basically French with a dodgy accent. They're rude beggers those Spaniards!

are you sure he wasn't from toulouse?:rotfl: my sister has a beautiful accent in french, and mine, which used to towards the Southwest whe i spoke it, put the family to shame. . No mistaking me for posh in french!