Is it possible to fix a venetian blind upside down?

March 2, 2016 5:37 AM

I've googled and not found anything specific to venetian blinds. Has anyone hung a venetian blind upside down, so you fix it to the bottom of the window frame and pull it up to close it? Any hints and tips? The mechanism is a bit trickier than on a roller blind so it would be great to see a set of instructions first, if there is such a thing.
posted by glasseyes to Home & Garden (10 answers total)

I've seen it done with Roman shades, but I doubt it would work out well with Venetians. Try lifting the bottom of a conventionally hung Venetian blind, and see how difficult it is to get the slats to pile up on each other neatly. That's basically the same situation you'd have if you were lowering from the top.
posted by jon1270 at 5:49 AM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

You'd need something to catch the bottom, as gravity is what holds the blinds down at the bottom. I believe that you can get blinds that work in both directions, but they run along a track in the window.
posted by xingcat at 5:55 AM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

A venetian blind is normally engineered so that it lowers under its own weight and is held at a particular height by a locking mechanism and two cords. If you fix it upside-down, this mechanism no longer works.

As jon1270 says, the slats won't work properly if the blind is upside-down. A better approach might be to try to rig it the right way up, but with the bottom of the blind fixed at the bottom of the window, and the top part of the blind raised and lowered. I haven't tried this, so the following is all guesswork...

What you could try is to fix a couple of eyes to the top of the window frame and then rig your own cords to attach to the top of the blind. One cord is longer than the other, so that it passes through both eyes, while the other passes through just one, allowing the cords to be tied together at the side of the window. Then you should be able to raise and lower the blind by pulling on the cords.

Of course that's without considering how you'll open and close the slats. The existing mechanism will continue to work, but it's going to be a bit weird.
posted by pipeski at 5:55 AM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

You probably want what's called a Cellular or Top-Down Bottom-Up shade. I have something like this one (although I paid a lot less for it) and it's AWESOME. It can cover just the bottom of the window, only the middle, literally anything you want.
posted by kate blank at 6:00 AM on March 2, 2016 [7 favorites]

... On second thought, maybe it could work. I think that instead of using the cords that run through the slots in the slats to raise it up and down, you'd have to leave those cords at a fixed length so that they support the bottom and serve to keep the slats aligned as they go slack and stack up at the bottom when the shade is lowered. Attach another set of cords to the top slat (or to a more rigid bar immediately above the top slat), and use those to raise and lower.
posted by jon1270 at 6:00 AM on March 2, 2016

What you could try is to fix a couple of eyes to the top of the window frame and then rig your own cords to attach to the top of the blind. One cord is longer than the other, so that it passes through both eyes, while the other passes through just one, allowing the cords to be tied together at the side of the window. Then you should be able to raise and lower the blind by pulling on the cords.

You'll want to make sure these eyes are secured really well because you'll be exerting much more force than you normally would to close the blinds, and it would be easy for this to rip the eyes out of the wall.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:08 AM on March 2, 2016

You might try searching for top down blinds. Here's an instructable that might be what you want.
posted by bluedaisy at 6:09 AM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

My parents installed a type of blinds across the living room bay windows that I quite like, although I imagine you really have to pick a color you love, since they're probably a huge pain to change. They're on a pulley system that lets you adjust the height of both the top and bottom, so they can be lowered or pulled up or left to hang as a band across the middle portion of the window.

I have no idea what they're called and it's not waking hours where they are, so unless the hive mind knows, I'm useless.
posted by wakannai at 6:10 AM on March 2, 2016

You're looking for "bottom-up" shades. The shades will come in roman, honeycomb, and other fabrics. I don't believe bottom-up venetian blinds exist.
posted by Karaage at 6:16 AM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

wakannai is also talking about top-down bottom-up shades :) They can also be just top-down (which is closer to what you're describing) or just bottom-up (which operates from the bottom of the window like a conventional blind). I have gotten them (specifically cellular shades) for the last three places I've lived because I love them so much, and after we got them my parents got some for their front bedrooms too. We get cordless since we have small kids so you can just grab the two handles and pull the bottom up or the top down or vice versa.

They're awesome because you can just see the *top* of your view, rather than only seeing the bottom, which can include such eyesores as neighboring houses, streets, cars, power poles, etc. In our living room when you look out the window all you see is sky, trees, and our view. And we don't have to worry about privacy either because you can barely see the tops of our heads if you're looking in. They aren't the cheapest window treatments out there by a long shot but I've found them to be eminently worth it. Plus if you get nice ones you can put "custom window treatments" in the listing if you sell the house, which sounds fancy and classy.

You can order them and DIY install from Levolor (probably from other places too but I got Levolor ones), or find a window treatments shop near you. In fact, if you are actually interested in this type of blind, going to a window treatments showroom nearby would be a good idea anyway just to get a sense of your options. We have gotten our last two from installers who sell Comfortex shades. They're more expensive but I gather the install for the Levolor shades was a bit of a pain so we get the full-service thing done now.
posted by town of cats at 9:02 PM on March 2, 2016