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Q. I have a new vinyl French style patio door in the kitchen area and need some type of window covering. Can I attach mini blinds or roman shades directly to the door above the glass? If so what kind of fasteners do I need? I really don't like vertical shades/blinds as they would not go with the look I want.

A. I have never tried this, but my best guess would be yes. Depending on the manufacturer, a vinyl door might be vinyl over a wood core, or hollow vinyl extrusions that are cut and bounded together at the corners. If the doors have a wood core, there will be no problem. The screws will go through the vinyl and into the wood.

If these doors are hollow, you will need to be very careful when putting in the screws. Don’t over tighten them, or they will rip out the plastic and you will have to try again with larger screws. You might want to add some sort of adhesive between the bracket that holds the blinds and the door. Sorry, I don’t have a suggestion for a specific adhesive, but browse through the selection at your hardware store and see what claims to bond to both vinyl and metal.

When you put blinds or shades on a door, you need to attach them at the bottom as well as the top. If you don’t, every time the door is opened, the blinds go flying and crashing around. This will be tough on the blinds as well as the door and the jamb. It should be no problem getting the appropriate hardware from the blind manufacturer.

One last thing to keep in mind, this is going to be permanent. Once you drill through the vinyl, there is no good way to fill or patch the hole and make it look good. I might be a bit nervous about attaching blinds to a hollow vinyl door that gets a lot of traffic and/or will have a lot of opening and closing or raising and lowering of the blinds. Over time, this may tend to loosen the screws holding the hardware, and lead to ripping them out.

If the doors are from a large manufacturer, you may be able to find a more definite answer on their website.

 
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