At this latitude the daylight hours start to creep on the morning sleeping time starting in March. Having a good light-blocking shade in the bedroom is key.
This was a surprising failure mode of our roller shade. The stamped metal bracket was wearing down the roll's pin over the years to nothing, until it sheared off, dropping the whole roll on my partner. You can see how the bracket's cam has worn out as well, from a circle to a blob. If the pin had survived, the bracket woud have worn through in a few more decades.
The shade might be original to the 1974 apartment, and hard to replace. Nobody mass-produces shades 3 meters long. A company that makes custom roller-shade sizes quoted €400, lol. I already hacked this one with a light blocking layer, which has been great for the sunlight months.
Designing the repair part with Cuttle was a tiny victory. Found a pin at the fablab. Cut the center hole with kerf compensation for a perfect fit. Scored circles around the screw holes to make it easier to sink the screw heads. Remembered to fabricate more than one, in case something went wrong at home. This victory balances my first fail trying to fix it, when I stabbed my hand with a screw driver.
If I had found this bead-chain kit I might have gone straight for that retrofit. The spring still works, so the bead-chain can wait for the next fix.
There is something comforting about doing repairs like these, and to be posting such a mundane note on my own site. Will anybody ever read this? Appreciate it? IDK, but this is what I want to offer the world the .html that I want to put on my site today. That one social network keeps putting "dull men/womens club" content into my algo, and I'm... content with that content.
Maybe there's an indiewebring way to bring that kind of discovery. Following people isn't it.
I want unstructured time online to feel like wandering through artist studios, bookshops, libraries, fab labs, repair clubs, folk schools (community colleges), museums.