Friday, February 03, 2006

A "Shady" Proposition

Ok, so every owner at Fremont Lofts gets an e-mail about a potentially good deal on buying window shades for our windows. The shades are double cell Graber fabric shades. I got the quote and saw that the prices are fairly reasonable especially considering that they include installation, plus they have the benefit of being exactly measured by the design firm. So it seems that the deal for shades is actually pretty good.

Now for the sticker shock. It will cost me $2,652.00 to install shades in my unit. Now to be fair I do have 8 of these beautiful oversize windows. I have 4 that are 68" wide, 3 that are 78" wide and one that is a full 89.5" wide, and they are all 106" tall. To just do the bedrooms is $927.00.

I should have known I was in trouble when the representative from the commented said somethign to the affect of "Boy, you have a lot of windows". Most of the units actually have only 2 windows total, so their prices are a good deal less.

Now don't get me wrong - I was in no way expecting $10 per window or any such foolishness. I fully expected to pay $100-150 per window, but not $289, $349, and $449 per window (respectively per each size).

I am mulling the idea of buying only bedroom shades and buying the rest at a later date and either paying even more for them and having them installed or installing them myself. I also briefly considered buying only my bedroom for shades but if I'm going to get a good price on rent I really should provide shades for the guest bedroom to provide privacy. Especailly since I can't just buy a $10 set of blinds to hold things over given the size of these windows.

Comments, ideas? Am I out of my mind? :)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the 68 wide is a regular size and you might be able to get shades at JC Penny or Sears...The other size is something that will have to be customized.....

Christine said...

Buy a sheet and hang it up! HAHAHA
dont worry about privacy for the quest room just yet...
68" wide for a shade is a regular size - its the length that might getcha...

http://www.justblinds.com/

Anonymous said...

Mom got these kinds of cellular blinds for our house. They're amazing and save you tons on the heating bill because you can really feel the insulating effect. And they look really nice. The ones we have are cordless which is cool, but the light blocking ones in my room have a cord. But she's done one room at a time over the past few years. Yeah they're pricey, and you may want to see if you can order them from Lowes or Home Depot and install them yourself. I don't recall the brand name but I'll ask mummy and let you know.