09 Camelot Bedroom Shade - how the heck do you...

[elnatural]

So I need to take the old shade out and restring it. But what I'm having a dickens of a time is trying to remove the frame around the window/shade to get to the shade.

I looked in the cabinet above the shade to see if there were any screws holding it in place - nope. After about an hour I walked away and will look again later today.

If anyone has gone through this exercise and can tell me how to remove the frame to get to the shade I owe you a beer!

Thanks

[ZackMan]

Originally Posted by elnatural

So I need to take the old shade out and restring it. But what I'm having a dickens of a time is trying to remove the frame around the window/shade to get to the shade.

I looked in the cabinet above the shade to see if there were any screws holding it in place - nope. After about an hour I walked away and will look again later today.

If anyone has gone through this exercise and can tell me how to remove the frame to get to the shade I owe you a beer!

Thanks

elnatural,

I restringed the forward small window shade on the front driver’s side slide on our coach, but I could not remove the decorative hard covering in my case, not a cabinet, surrounding the top of it. I removed the shade, restringed it and reinstalled.

It was a “real pain” to do it this way If you find a way to remove the cabinet, please share.

[PlanBee]

I just installed roller blinds on every window in the bus. The windows in the bed headboard area had a screw in each lower corner of the valance and two p top. They can be hard to see. Remove them and the valance comes down with the blind attached.

A 6" square drive bit makes it super easy, once you see the screws.

The larger windows on the opposite side of the bedroom were the same, but had 3 screws in the top of valance.

[elnatural]

So here is what I found. There really was a brain fart on the side of Monaco when they designed the way shades are installed. In my case it was an utter pain to get a phillip's bit sitting in an extension to reach and remove the screws holding the frame in place. Once I finally got the frame out of the way it was still by poor design the way the shade was held in place (2 box screws on the window side of the shade). Monaco took the crappy fast and easy on the assembly line route.

Being a engineer by trade I'm going to put this back together the right way. First - USE THE SAME TYPE OF SCREWS. Some of the screws required phillip's bits - some used box bits. Always use box head screws. Less stripping.

I'm going to install clips that will hold the shade in place so if there is a next time removing the shade will be a snap. Second - when reinstalling the frame around the shade I'll run screws from the overhead cabinet into the top of the frame. Easy to get to and if I do this again easy to remove.

One less repair on my bucket list

[PlanBee]

Will you need to remove the bottom panel of the overhead cabinet also then, I think mine all have false bottoms and a gap between that and the actual bottom of the cabinet.

I agree with using all the same fasteners, what a pain constantly switching between Philips and the Robertson #2 AND #1 that I found while doing all my shades.

[elnatural]

Originally Posted by PlanBee

Will you need to remove the bottom panel of the overhead cabinet also then, I think mine all have false bottoms and a gap between that and the actual bottom of the cabinet.

I agree with using all the same fasteners, what a pain constantly switching between Philips and the Robertson #2 AND #1 that I found while doing all my shades.

Yes. Removing the bottom panel in the overhead cabinet makes the work go much smoother. Once the screws were out I had to remove one of the recessed lights (be careful - they are held in place with spring loaded snaps and if you don't watch yourself it will feel like a mouse trap snapped down on your fingers - I know cause it happened to me the first time) so I could get a blunt tool to push up on the bottom panel to get it to come out. When all done be sure to put the lighting in first so the snaps fit easily into place otherwise with the bottom panel back in place and THEN trying to put in the recessed lighting back in the snaps are long and it is a bear to get them back in.