Today I’m going to show you how to fix corded blinds that happen to be stuck in the raised position once you first install them. So, as you can see, I give the cord a little tug. They’re not really coming down like they should.
So our first step is going to be popping the valance off. Go ahead and set that somewhere safe, and then we’ll want to remove the blinds from the box brackets that it’s installed in. Then pop that one off, and then we can just slide this right on out of here, and we’ll bring it over and set it down on a flat surface.
And you’ll want to make sure that the headrail is faced upwards, that way you can see into the inside of it. So we will need one super common tool to fix this – that would be a flat head screwdriver.
Now, when you’re looking inside the headrail of the blinds, you’re going to want to find the cord lock mechanism, which is where the cords are going into the headrail.
There’s a little part in here called the “pawl.” It’s a kind of rough metal piece that is what actually holds on to the cords and keeps them locked in position. You can see this one is just stuck as I’m pulling on the cords, it’s not moving as it should.
So we’re going to want to take a flat head screwdriver and just push down on this, and it’ll kind of pop back into the correct spot. So just give it a little push…and there it was. It kind of popped into place, and as you can see, the cords are now moving pretty freely.
Now that our cords are free and moving, when you go to pick the blind back up, you’ll want to make sure that you have the cords pulled to the right side or the left side.
If your cords are on the left side of your blind, but toward the outside edge, what that’s going to do is re-lock the cords. That way as you pick the blind up, it doesn’t just extend almost like an accordion of sorts.
Once you’ve got that there, you’re good to go ahead and install it back in the window. The process from here is the same thing that you just did when installing the blinds.
You will open up the doors of your box bracket and just go ahead to slide it right on in. These ones close downwards. You might have some that close inwards like that, but you just want to get it locked in place so that way it’s not going anywhere once it’s up.
You’ll take your valance, and whether that has magnets like this or some clips, just get that reconnected back on your blind, and then you’ll grab your lift cords, give them a pull down and we should see some movement from the blinds this time.
Now we can swing towards the center and slowly lower our blinds, and you’ll be good to go!
If you’re still running into any issues with them, even after trying that little tip there, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Design Consultant Team. They’ll be more than happy to see what we can do to help out.
Behind the Blinds is our series where we dive into the finer details of everything shades and blinds. For more information about window coverings, call our Design Consultants at (888) 257-1840. They’re easy to talk to!
