When we bought our house, all the windows had old aluminum blinds so we threw them out:

We replaced them with expensive silhouette blinds. I thought they looked great at first but over time I began to hate them. For one, our cats were slowly destroying them. They were creating holes with their nails and their fur was stuck to them and a pain to get off. Also when they became dirty/dusty, they were very hard to clean. I even tried washing them in a bath of soapy water and they still looked dirty. Some holes from the cats:

So within 10 years, we trashed them all. We initially replaced them with cheap temporary paper shades. They worked fine but I eventually wanted a permanent fix. After years of debating it, we finally agreed on faux wood blinds. But before we invested in new blinds, I wanted to add new trim to the windows. I hated how they looked so outdated with the older style window sill.

Before pictures:

We first removed the apron trim under the sill and then Mike used a reciprocating saw to cut through the nails to remove the sill completely:

I cleaned up all the debris and removed all the caulk on the window frames using a razor blade:

Mike attached the new window sill/piece of wood with screws using shims to level it. I didn’t want the new sill to stick out like the old one so it doesn’t become an issue with furniture:

We added wood trim around the inside of the window attaching it using a nail gun:

And we added casing around the window. At first, I had wanted to do a Craftsman style but we later agreed that it wouldn’t match the rest of the moulding we have throughout the house. So we used the same type of casing that we used around our door frames:

I caulked and painted all the wood:

At this point, we measured the space inside the window trim for ordering blinds. We ended up ordering Bali 2 in. Faux Wood Blinds. We picked the color Milky Way to best match our trim color, Swiss Coffee. We picked them out at the store (looking at all the samples) but ultimately ordered them online. I think we got a cheaper price that way:

We also ordered them with the no holes option (they have small notches instead). Completed window with new blinds:

I also painted this room at the same time (more on that later):

We have finished 2 windows so far…only 6 more to go!