It's curtains for the old blinds

Here's a perfectly timed upgrade that we've been wanting to do for a while. The old internal window blinds have served us well but always felt a little 'temporary'. And since using the external cab blind more often, the internal ones were simply getting in the way... the solution; curtains.

We'd been aware of a curtain kit from Kiravans for quite a while but weren't in a position to justify the price. But thanks to a competition they were running we soon found ourselves with a nice voucher towards the purchase. As is usual in the land of Stone174, nothing is ever that simple - there's nothing in the Kiravans curtain range for the right hand sliding door on our twin slider... Time for a little Yorkshire ingenuity.

As we were keen to continue using the external cab blind, the kit ordered comprised of a curtain for the left hand sliding door, one for the tailgate, and another left hand sliding door kit (a right hand fixed window version would be too wide).

Pic: Kiravans

As you can see the curtains look nice and simple - they're always under tension so don't flap or move around - and the black-out option we went for certainly seems to work.

Fitting is relatively straightforward and the mounting kit is sufficient. Confidence with a drill is required! We started on the left hand sliding door first (all fine), then on to the tailgate (again, all fine with some very slight adjustment to the curve of the rail), and then on to the driver's side sliding door.

Here we simply 'flipped' the left hand version - the top rail is still the top rail but now mirrors the one at the other side, this fits fine without adjustment. Next we offered up the bottom rail - here it doesn't fit 'perfectly' at either end - the rear corner needed a tweak to fit and the front fouls against the door handle plastic cover.

At first I thought it would be case of 'out with the angle-grinder' and trim the rail... but on closer inspection (it's always wise to take a step back, have a brew, and mull things over for a bit) we decided to remove the door handle cover, trim it to the profile of the curtain rail, fit the rail, replace the cover - perfect!

Thanks Kiravans, not only for the curtains but for letting us be your competition winners!