Living in a trawler is like living in a giant fish bowl. I love it! My biggest complaint about our sailboat was not having any windows to enjoy the view. Of course with all these great views looking out, you get a lot of curious people looking in. At night we like to be able to get some privacy but our living/dining/galley room had no blinds or curtains.
The aft stateroom already had honeycomb blinds similar to these and we noticed that they did a nice job of insulating the windows — keeping the cold out when we run the heater. So while I was picking up some boat bits at Ikea the other day I found very reasonably priced blinds that looked very similar.
I took my measurements and picked up the ones that came closest to fitting. Since our windows are far from rectangular there is no way to fully cover the windows unless we get custom blinds.
Installation was straight forward after Mike picked up some stainless screws. We already had nice teak valances that mostly hide the blinds. Unfortunately, the blinds are only available in one length which is twice as long as we need.
Installing the new blinds
We can’t help but look. It fascinates me how boat builders (and RV builders) get all the important stuff into such a tiny space and what people have to do to live in those tiny spaces. We want to make it work just like you guys, so we want to check it out. My husband and I are planning on going from 1700 sq ft to 900 sq ft in a couple of years. I’m one of the folks who wants to check out the storage. Nice job on the privacy blinds. For the smaller windows you might want to check to see if Home Depot or Lowes can order you a show room sample.
Looks like Mike did a great job, I’ll call when I need some work done here.