Customizing A Store-Bought Woven Shade

Last Updated on December 27, 2013 by Kristi Linauer

Happy Monday!  I hope you had a wonderful weekend!  I worked over at John & Alice’s house on Saturday, and then took yesterday OFF.  I intended to do a couple of projects, like work on my dining chairs, but I decided I just needed a break…completely. 

Anyway, John & Alice’s kitchen is coming along very nicely!  Well, except that the electricians broke their glass top stove as they were reinstalling it.  I mean, cracked the thing clear across the top, from one side to the other.   Uugghhh!!!  Two steps forward, one step back.

But on to happier things.  One task I needed to take care of was replacing the very dull white blinds on the kitchen window.

I wanted to add a natural woven shade in a medium brown to give some warmth to the cool grays and whites in the room.  Unfortunately, my very favorite woven shade from Home Depot didn’t come in the right size.  I needed a 34” x 46” shade, and the closest they had was 34” x 72”.

I didn’t want two extra feet of shade bunched up at the bottom of the window, so I decided to customize the length myself.  It was actually not any more difficult that customizing the length of those 2” blinds!

I started by placing the shade on the floor, with the length fully extended. (The top is on the left side.)

Next, I used my tape measure to measure out the length I wanted.

The height of my window was 46”, so I allowed a few extra inches, and cut at around the 50” mark.  I used a razor blade to cut the thin cords all the way across.

Then I removed about five of the wood pieces to leave about 1” of the thin cords exposed all the way across.

Next I cut the cords that actually raise and lower the shade.

I secured it to the last ring by first tying a double knot in the end of the cord.

Then I tied a single knot around the metal ring, and pulled until the single knot rested on the double knot.  I repeated that on the other cord.

Next, using a high temp hot glue gun, I wrapped the thin cords around the last piece of wood, and glued.

I started by doing this in three places…each end and in the middle…just to keep the piece of wood secure.

Then I went back and glued all of the ones in between.

When all of the tiny cords were glued along the bottom, I turned up the bottom of the shade about 1”…

…and then secured with hot glue.  This created a “hem” that hid all of the ends of the cords, as well as the hot glue.

And when it was finished, it looked pretty much exactly like the original bottom edge of the shade looked.

Now when it’s hanging in the window, I don’t have 2+ extra feet of shade bunched in the bottom of the window.  It’s the perfect length!

Now I just need to shorten the pull cords a bit so they’re not dragging on the countertop.

So there you have it!  Don’t be afraid to customize these shades.  I showed you a while back how to customize the width, and now you know how to customize the length.  There’s no need to spend hundreds of dollars on custom woven shades when you can get them at a fraction of the cost and customize the size yourself!

Have you ever tried this?  Did you have success with it?

Psst…Did you miss yesterday’s link party?  Click here to see the fabulous projects that were linked up!  And there’s still time to link up your own project.