Replacing shades with Levolor Blinds

[Doug Sage]

My day-night shades have worked okay but are now wearing out. I am considering changing to Levolar blinds. I would want to get a wood color similar to my washed maple that is on the cabinets. I have several questions and wonder if some of you out there have done this and can answer them for me. Can you mount the blinds with screws to the top frame like the day-night shades are mounted? Can you use the pull string to raise and lower them or do the fabric window surrounds get in the way? How wide should the blinds be - 1 inch or 2 inches +/- ? Does Levolar make a color similar to washed maple? Where can you buy them? Any idea on approximate cost? I assume that they come with or available with brackets at the bottom to hold them down and somewhat tight. My current thought though is to pull them up when traveling but maybe they would stay quiet when down and held in the bottom clips. Is this true?

Thanks for your help. I am currently on my way to Alaska and Internet is a little sporadic for me so my replies may not come in a timely manner.

Doug

[1ciderdog]

Doug, we recently purchased our present RV and the first thing my spouse wanted was to get rid of the Levolar type blinds and get day/night blinds. They came out to our house (60 or more miles from the place of business) and replaced all of them in our 39 Journey in about 3 hours. Cost was under $700. She says keeping all those little individual blinds clean is a PITA. Anyhow I googled Levolar and noticed an installation site: You might want to look at that to see if it covers your installation questions. Installation Instructions for Window Blinds, Shades, and Drapery Hardware | www.levolor.com

[Keith K]

We finally got tired of the day/night shades breaking and replaced them with 1" wood mini-blinds from justblinds.com. You can go to their web site and request free samples to match your wood. They make the blinds to custom fit your measurements and we're very happy with the quality. I installed them throughout the MH myself. Order the ones that have brackets that fasten to the wall, and plan on using plastic anchors. The pull cords work fine, but you'll want to shorten the wands to about 12" or less so that they don't bounce against the blinds when moving. With the bottom brackets attached and the cords tight, they make little or no noise while traveling, and if they should, you can just pull them all the way up. They look very classy, much more so than the day/night shades, they are much darker when closed, and the best part is that you can adjust them for ventilation and still have privacy. You can see pictures of how they look at our blog, Damn Near Perfect Couple: Dreary February
We'd never have the day/night shades again, and although we liked the MCD shades, they looked a bit too "industrial" and were too expensive. You can PM me if you'd like more information.

[cjean]

Hi keith, last winter we took out all of the day and night shades, removed all of the window boxes and installed micro cellular shades (similar to Levelors) they are spring loaded roll-ups (no strings) purchased at "Blinds are us", we are very happy with the results.

[jimjr]

Take a look at these... MCD Innovations

[Doug Sage]

Thanks for the information. It looks like it is easier than I had expected to replace the shades with blinds. This is a project that will have to wait until we get back from Alaska this fall but I wanted to see what was involved. Thanks again.

[Clay L]

Originally Posted by jimjr

Take a look at these... MCD Innovations

We just installed those and are very pleased with them. Pricey but work very smoothly and give complete privacy at night.

We plan to go to the factory in TX next spring and have them install the motorized ones with remote control on the windshield.