Persianas

[Manalto]

Look what I "found"! I put the quotation marks because I found these venetian blinds by the side of the road in 1975. I stashed them in my parents' garage loft knowing I'd use them one day, and there they've been for the past 42 years. Today I'm packing for my trip to Alabama and remembered my little stash, so I took them down (causing a rain of mouse turds) and put them in the truck. The mechanisms are there and the boards that hide the mechanisms. They may need repainting, but they're real wood, of course. Out of this pile I should be able to equip a room or two with blinds.


Venetian blinds by James McInnis, on Flickr

[Lily left the valley]

Sweet find! I hope all goes well this weekend. Safe travels.

[Corsetière]

Nicer than anything you will find today!

[Gothichome]

42 years into old home planning, now that's foresight.

[Olson185]

42 years into old home planning, now that's foresight.

Sometimes, "selective hoarding" could be a good thing.

[Texas_Ranger]

Neat!

Looking at old pictures of Vienna I slowly realised that once EVERYONE had blinds like these! Summertime pictures show them billowing out of every single open window. They're still made and from time to time you even see original ones but they're really rare. My dad says he helped take them down in his childhood home back in the 60s because they fell apart. I'm tempted to have some new ones manufactured for our south-facing windows!

[Manalto]

I remember the ones with metal slats. Not the ubiquitous mini blinds but the broader slats about the same size as the wooden ones. Sharp and nasty to clean.

The bad news is the blinds are too small! These pre-days-of-air-conditioning windows were made nice and broad for this climate, but unfortunately too big for my vintage Venetian blinds.

So if anyone on THD would like my blinds you're welcome to them for what I paid. If you're interested I'll take measurements - something I should have done before hauling the things 1100 miles!

[phil]

oh well no loss.. you might just have to hold them a little longer my house came with a stack of long wood slats. it's very thin plywood, I guess sort of paneling with a mahogany veneer on one side. I dont' really want any mahogany in the house but I figured they had intentions of making up wood blinds and gave up. the kitchen cabinets were mahogany plywood too.. 50's stuff I guess.

there isn't that much wood there, If you have a saw you could cut longer slats and use the old strings and stuff or maybe just copy them? you might find paneling that is two sided or even glue two sheets together. ripping them to width would be fast. a 10 inch tablesaw should be able to cut about 4" so you could cut them on a tablesaw but if it were a little saw you'd then have to do that wide cut from both sides, a bit more complicated that way. If you have access to a big bandsaw you could use that to cut slices from a large board, then you can glue them to a backer temporarily and sand them or thickness plane them while still stuck to the carrier board.

I think if you could use paneling and then just trim them to width and darken the edges with a dark pen so you dont' see the plys, that would be pretty fast. You might find some nice paneling with black walnut or you can get edge grain fir veneer. you can also get super thin plywood if you look for it. It might be special order. I know those are solid lumber, maybe maple? some woods might do better than others at being sliced thin like that and still have reasonable strength. maybe maple, oak or teak ?

[Manalto]

Those are some good ideas. One thing I've learned from being in this house for a week is that the afternoons really heat up. The house is in shade until about 1 p.m. (June) and then, on a sunny day, it pounds on the front and side until sunset. I'm going tomorrow to speak with one of Mobile's most savvy horticulturists to get her ideas for a tree that will relieve some of that brutal afternoon sun. A deciduous tree would be the way to go, shading in summer and letting the sun warm the house in the winter. If you look at my avatar photo, the position of the tree would be in a straight line off the corner of that one-story addition on the left. On the inside, I'd like some version of Venetian blinds, plantation shutters, perhaps. As trendy as they are, here they would serve a practical purpose.

[phil]

maybe some attic venting would help? with mine I have a blower that sucks air out of the attic and blows it out through a box with an AC unit in it. another blower sucks air under the eves and blows it through the box to cool and into the bedroom. after about 2 it is so hot in there that the AC unit will blow the breaker if I just switch it on so I have to turn on the blower and that evacuates the attic , then an hour before bed I can turn on the AC as well.

a simple option might be two vents with one having a fan to blow the air from the attic and then a temperature switch like a thermostat to turn it on when over 100 degrees or so.

a more elaborate effort I keep thinking of is to strap the roof and put another roof leaving some space for a little insulation and air flow from the eves to a ridge vent or one of those whirly vent things. "technical term"

Ive just completed gutting my living room and most other rooms in the house to insulate. I get a LOT of noise so that is as much of the issue as heat. In the living room I experimented with the newer sound proof drywall. it helped.. but I think if getting the house cool is an issue then ventilation can do lots. Its cheaper to blow hot air out than cool it with AC. I've been thinking about adding a couple more fans to evacuate hot air as in mine it collects behind walls in the attic and above drywall in the attic rooms. skylights that open are good for that but they compete with the looks most of us are after.

I have a tree in the back near my alley and it as a type of little round plumbs. they are edible but seem to have a really short season when they are ready to eat. I moved a sucker from the tree by the alley and got it growing in another spot and it grew pretty fast. I had a friend from Europe that recognized it by the plumbs , they look like cherry tomatoes. you have a different climate though. if you clear land here alder grows first and maple. maple makes for good shade but I had one and cut it because it grew too fast and planted itself all over the place. my neighbor planed a japanese maple ( red leaves) and it is doing well and I think they grow a little slower. I have a few lilacs. they seem pretty easy to live with.

I guess another consideration with shade trees is if they will undermine your foundation or blow over if they aren't protected from wind. some kinds of willow make nice shade but they might be too slow.

I have a neighbor with a heritage house and a maple that is like 2 feet in diameter about 4 feet from the house. it has a nice shade umbrella but it's probably growing under it too. I guess the other factors are moss and how they plug your gutters. I have one with little red non edible berries that is going nuts and too close to the house. one neighbor has a apple tree. it doiesn't have many apples and it started growing my way a lot. about two years ago they cut it way back and I was happy not to have the stuff in my gutters. it sprung back like crazy.

Ive got two other varieties of plumbs, I like them because I get to eat the plumbs but the trees are unkept and shabby. I have a cherry tree that was sick with ants running up and down and I cut it back to a post and now it's trying to live again. some cherry trees grow pretty big. I had a nice big one but it was on city land and they removed it. the cherries were mostly pit and small not the eating variety but edible but the racoon family always had a field day picking them all.

my favorites are the fruit trees because it is really nice to get the fruit. I usually just give most away because I am too lazy to can them or make jam, not my thing it's kind of fun to be able to pass them around. If you get a lot of bears the friuit trees can turn into other issues. im in the city so no bears but others who are on the outskirts have this issue of them coming into residential areas.
I was worried about the racoons around my cat but so far as I can see they seem to actually stay away. they i dont' think they want o tangle with cats although I guess there is the potential for them to corner each other. thye can be fierce if cornered. I dont' know how often it actually happens. they aren't fearful of humans but they are smart animals. we get skunks too but I think if they move in near people the people chase them away pretty quickly. they domnt' play well with dogs. I love watching the baby skunks they are just so cute from a distance. they moved in under my shed and got to listen to a ghetto blaster for a day .. that worked without harming the critters. of course they moved on to be someone elses issue unless they went in a park.
couple weeks ago I had a racoon family that was trying to move into my boat parked in the yard. she was teaching them how to climb into it under the tarp. I stood there tossing little pebbles ( underhanded) from like 30 feet away and they just watched as they landed on them. it wasn't until mom got the idea I was showering her precious babies with little rocks ,, then she skittled off , kids in tow. pretty cute, but you know, not in my back yard

we have fierce crows. one follows my girlfriend when she goes out. they recognize people. I guess maybe someone that looked like her harmed them once? it got so she had to take an umbrella to hide under until she went a few blocks. we've had some weird issues in the news about the crows. my cat liked to go on the roof and I think they taught her that's their domain. crows are super smart. we had one recently in the news that stole a knife from a crime scene and he's been known to steal other knives.. more recently they had an issue with someone who couldn't get their mail delivered after one actually drew blood from the postman.. it was the same crow! maybe they learn from dogs too
the most amazing thing is how they will congregate. they meet at a certain place but how they all know when the date is , who knows. they gather in the millions and then they all go back home. it's some sort of social event. sorry I'm ramblng again