Twice a year I move the vertical blinds on my balcony door from the front to the back room because I switch it up with a cover on the door that keeps out the draft in winter in the front and blocks the sun in summer in the back. Last winter one of the stems that holds the louver (vertical slat) broke off in the frontroom, so when I wanted to move the blinds back for summer, I had to repair it before I could hang them back up. Here is a photoblog of how I did this.


I didn't have time to fix it right away, so I had a hole in between the blinds for the past week (I put a scarf on the door to cover it, so the neighbours in the flat across the street couldn't peek through;). In the photo on the right you can see the broken stem.


Carefully took the system apart (and took photos of the process, so I could see how it was supposed to be put back together...)


Fortunately this rail has 11 carrier bodies while I only have 10 slats, so all I have to do is I take the broken one out. To do this I still need to take the whole thing apart. It took me a while to figure out how to disconnect these plastic distance keeper strips*.


I managed to do it, but then after taking the carrier body with the broken stem out from between the rest, I fiddled a lot to connect the distance keeper again and in my struggle I broke one:(


Seeing as there is no tension on them, I figured I could repair it with tape and sure enough: that worked! Then I carefully fiddled some more to connect all the carrier bodies in one row:)


Now to put it all together again... (using the photos I took as a guide in reverse:)


Tadaah!

Shout out to this instruction video by Peter Heine who showed me that the rails could be taken apart and what parts I should be careful with (*his distance keeper strips were metal, so he didn't have to worry about breaking them;)