Sunday, December 06, 2009

Ben vs. The Blackout Shade

I never really gave much thought to the shades in our house. 5+ years ago we had them installed, and ever since they've Just Worked. That is, until a few weeks ago, when I noticed the shade in our bedroom wasn't really raising properly any more.

Thanks to the dangly thing on the cord, I realized that the shade was made by Hunter Douglas. I gave them a call asking them what I should do. Apparently, their shades have a lifetime warantee - I just needed to deal with a few details: (1) describe the part that was broken and (2) install the replacement part they sent me.

Using the most primitive of terms I was able to describe to the woman on the other end what was broken. And for no charge, she shipped me on out the parts.

The replacement part came with, I kid you not, a 17 step installation procedure (for one little broken thingy!).

As I carefully followed each step I was struck by: (a) the clever design of the shade and (b) how there was in fact a precise name for each part of the shade. Like the bale, equalizer and equalizer-wedge. I suppose each field gets its own jargon, why not the shade and blind field?

As is true to most projects I take on, it took repeating the steps 3 times before I finally got it all right. Who knew you could run the cord through the cord-lock and bale incorrectly not once, but twice, before realizing your mistake?

All in all, our shade is back to functional and I can now carry on a conversation with a shade replacement-part supplier. All in all, not a bad accomplishment.

No comments:

Post a Comment