Painting your window blinds

Instead of having colorless and boring window blinds on your window, paint them with color that will make it more interesting and fabulous. You can easily change the appearance of your house or room with changing the color of your window blinds. Give your window blinds a perfect makeover which at the same time will compliment the look of your window curtains. Or even better, you don\’t have to use window curtains anymore as the result of colored window blinds!! This project won\’t acquire long period of time. It\’s a fun and easy painting project that you can do it with your children. If you are using paint sprays and taking your children together to do this project, use toxic free paints and wear face or nose mask for safety. These are steps on how to paint your window blinds.

Materials and tools that you need:

• Outdoor enamel spray paint (your choice of colors)
• primer color spray
• rubber gloves
• newspaper
• graph paper
• colored pencils

Steps:

First, you will need to clean your window blinds. The reason is because a clean blind will provide a clear and more manageable surface for the paint color to adhere better. If your blinds are dirty, it\’s best to clean them thoroughly by soaking in soapy solution in the tub or larger container that fit the blinds. Leave it for a while until you can see the soapy solution become dirty. Then, rinse the blinds with water and then leave them to dry outside by laying them on the ground or any clean surface.

Next, decide your painting design patterns. If you want a constant pattern, make a design of it on a graph paper using colored pencils to make coloring lines. Count your blinds slats before determining your color pattern. Wider bands of color require 3 to 5 adjacent slats, and narrower band only takes about 2 to 3 slats.

Take your window blinds apart when it\’s clean. It\’s easy, by removing the end caps and the metal cover from the bottom bar. Cut or unknot the cord ends and pull out to remove them out from the slats. Slide the slats from the ladder like cording on each side.

Then, place newspaper on your working table or surface where it is in a well aired room or do this painting on the outside. Place all the slats on the newspaper. You can do few batches of slats painting if you have limited or small working place. You have to make sure there are few inches of distance between each slats so the painting will stick on each slats perfectly. Cover the surrounding areas with newspaper if needed.

Wear your face mask or nose mask to prevent you inhaling the paints sprays. Covered your hand with rubber gloves and start to paint. First, spray the slats with primer coat. Test the primer spray on the first slat to insure that the paint will stick. Slick surfaces such as metal and plastic wont stick to ordinary paint so the primer coats give its function to help the other color to adhere better. Choose the best primer you can get as it will help you to paint in any surface. Good primer paint will also help to cover any stains or discoloration on the blinds.

The way of spraying onto the slats is by applying a back and forth sweeping motion. To avoid drips, keep spraying through without stopping on the middle of the slats. After that, let it dry completely for couple of hours (check the direction on the paint\’s label to see the drying time). After dry, turn the slats to the other side and paint. Repeat this process with each color when both sides of the slat are dry.

When all the painting is finish, leave the slats to dry overnight. To assemble back, affix the slats onto the blind in order and reinstall the cords. Now, the colored blind is ready to hang on your window.

Additional reading:

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/paintingblinds

Image Credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenny-pics/468040321/