Ok, in case you haven't figured it out, this is a tale of blinds. Window blinds, honeycomb/cellular blinds to be exact. I have had either the world's worst luck with ordering honeycomb blinds or someone up there is trying to tell me to deploy some other window coverings in my house.
It all started in December 2009. We had painted our kitchen, dining area and our old honeycomb blinds in our bay window were looking pretty dirty; suddenly one of them broke. So now I had to do something. It was not repairable. A friend suggested I try a company that supplied all the blinds for Extreme Makeover, Home Edition. A friend of hers had used them to outfit an entire vacation home with honeycomb blinds. OK, I got adventurous and ordered color samples from Select Blinds. They had a 30% discount going (which I now know is an all the time discount) so I ordered 3 honeycomb blinds for my bay window. They were in a lovely shade of light coffee.
The blinds arrived, and we hung one of the small side window blinds, the middle large blind and then moved on to the 3rd blind, another side window blind. After installing it, we noticed it was at least 2 inches too short. Great!! I rechecked my order form, yup, I had ordered all the blinds to be the same length. I looked at the top to make sure the bracket was mounted in the same locale as the other brackets of the other blinds. Yes, it was. This was not our human error. I contacted Select Blinds and they made me wait a week to see if the blind "dropped down over time." It didn't. So about a month later, our replacement came and it was case closed. I really liked the outcome.
Fast forward to April. In our family room which is attached to the kitchen/dining area in an open floor plan, we have a set of french doors and a double window. The cord to the blind on one of the french doors broke. You see, all of our blinds in the house are about 12 years old at this point, thus many are beginning to fail. I was faced with the decision again. What to do. Do I order from Select Blinds again and hope this time it turns out for the best? I ended up ordering the same color blinds from them for the family room so the whole area would blend together. I ordered two corded blinds for the french doors and one cordless blind for the double window. The blinds came in about 3 weeks. When I opened the first box, the blind was fine. We installed it on one of the french doors. When I opened the box for the second french door blind, I saw that the end cap with the cord was detached, broken off, and we realized that no matter what we did, that was not going to work. I was pretty angry. I called Select Blinds right then and there. They told me they would send a replacement cord assembly and directions telling us how to tension it up. That arrived 2 weeks later. It worked fine, but the length of the loop cord on that french door blind was at least a foot longer than the other one that was already installed. It looks a little funny side by side but nothing can be done.
We had held off installing the double window blind, out of aggravation. When it came time, it installed nicely and worked nicely. That is for 2 weeks. Then all of a sudden, one day I went to raise the blind (this one being cordless) and I heard and felt a distinct pop inside the blind which no longer raised or lowered, but settled at a cock-eyed angle toward the top of the window. The cord inside had snapped. My goodness, our luck with blinds is amazing! After speaking with 2 customer service agents at Select Blinds, they agreed to make a new blind and have me send back the old one. I had decided at that point that I will not order from them again. Based on past experience, I suspect I will be waiting about 3 weeks or more for the new one to arrive.
Meanwhile, I just painted my dining room and put up new window treatments (curtains) but wanted some blinds for that room, and for the adjacent office. I was not going to order from Select Blinds, but had received a circular from JC Penney that had cordless honeycomb blinds in it. I took a chance and ordered 4 (2 for each room) and hoped for the best. The JC Penney blinds arrived yesterday. Two of the blinds were the blinds we ordered, the other two were some random other kind of window treatment, and not even close to the size I ordered.
Is this a case of bad (blinds) luck strikes again? Or is someone trying to tell me something about ordering blinds....like NOT TO!! Or a third possibility is that quality control is non existent these days! Even if you stick a sticker with your name on it telling the world you inspected this item, nothing happens to you if the item fails. What good is the sticker? Is there really even an inspector #432? Maybe nobody inspects these things and they just put a sticker on it to make you think they do! The fourth and most sensible option is not to try to save any money buying cellular blinds. Pay top dollar for the name brands, Hunter Douglas, Graber, Levelor and maybe you will have better luck. The thing is, the cost of a double window cordless cellular blind from one of the name brands is hundreds of dollars more. Is it worth it? Maybe the quality control is there with the name brands unlike the off name brands.
In any case, I phoned JC Penney, they put in a new order to replace the incorrect blinds and I have to haul the incorrect ones down to a Penney's store to get a credit. Fun fun fun. in the meantime, my cellular blind ordering days are over for now. I can't take any more of the drama. Summer is too nice to waste worrying about this minutia. If I need to re-blind any other room, we are going to have to pass a cooling off period first!! That means fall.
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