Happy New Year 2017

 

And we are off on another year of travel, eat and drink, and blog; as well as planned and unplanned repair and improvement to the Flying Scotsman.

 

As the first couple of days of the new year were a really nice sixty degrees we decided to install some new shades over some windows, replacing ones that had become pretty beat up.

 

The old ones were the cardboard accordion type of shade with the strings that constantly broke and were impossible to clean behind. Below with the view of the lake is one of the shades as it was cut down .... neat! Ah ... dumpster time!

 

Below is the new one that we ordered from Bradd and Hall in Elkhart, as they have done excellent work for us in the past. They arrived and really looked super ... but no mounting instructions; oh well. Note the flex bit on the drill/screwdriver; this project couldn't have been done without it.

These clips below were screwed into the valence and theoretically you just then snapped the shade into them. NOT. They are pretty strong spring clips to withstand the pounding of the RV life so as you blindly push the shade up into them it took all my strength with a hammer and screwdriver to seat them and only once they were exactly positioned. Whew.

Once in and the swearing over, the finished product is really attractive. These are the two layer Automotion shades; one as you see below for the daytime privacy, and then an opaque one for nighttime total blockage. One touch of the hand and they go up or down .... how easy.

This was a really great project that we had talked about doing for several years. The three windows you see here plus the one over the dinette cost about $1400.00 so as time and money permit we will slowly do the remaining windows.