I'm confused about curtains sizes

[Horehound]

Can someone help me please?
I have measured the window plus some extra space is 220cm wide. So what size curtain do I need??

228cm width and whatever length you need

Thank you!

What sort of curtains do you want? What are they hanging from- pole or rail? Gathered , if so, how full? Or do you want eyelet tops?
What is the drop?
The Dunelm website has useful info on curtain measuring, including recommending curtain sizes. John Lewis has useful stuff about different curtain headings.

Measure the width of the window. You’ll need at least double width of curtain, & for extra fullness two & a half.

Double the width of window. You can sometimes get away with 1.5 times the width. You don’t want the width of the window otherwise when you draw them, they will be taught and flat, not gathered.

Sorry @TorysSuckRevokeArticle50 does that mean that each side of the curtain is 228cm? So a pair would equate to 456cm?

Sorry taut not taught lol.

Yes in total over 4 metres of fabric split between the pair of curtains. Draw up and tie the strings to the right width when the curtains are closed and spread the gathers evenly. Have a clip about every 4th slot.

Ok thanks all.im still j sure about style. It's so hard!I'll post a photo of living room. I've just painted walls and will be painting the brown to white shortly. Excuse the mess!I painted whilst 11month slept and really had no time to do much else

Ok so what about these sizes as well please?

178x220
184x134

Imagine your window with curtains closed. At the top it will be slightly gathered because otherwise it would be a blind To make those folds / gathers, you need your curtain material to be wider than the window.

Are you making the curtains or buying them? If making them, then you need enough fabric to be at least double the total window width (if you want full, deep folds in them, then you could go for three times the window width). If you are buying the curtains they will usually ask you the width of the window so you just use that.

You perhaps don't need 3 widths for such big windows. Sizes vary between shops but I expect you will want about 220 drop for both, and 165 wide for smaller and 220 wide for larger.

Each curtain should be about the size of the whole window, that what gives you the gather so it still has pleats in even when they're closed.

If each curtain is the width of half the window then when you close them they will be completely flat and stretched out.

Generally you can get away with less gather if you have tab tops or eyelet curtains but you really do need a decent amount of gather for pencil pleat or they will look too flat and sparse.

I think 178cm and 184cm wide curtains on a 220cm rail would be too small and would look taut when closed. Looking at those windows, 134 cm drop would be far too short. They will only come about 60% of the way to the floor.

Oh and with full height windows like those you'll be looking for 228 (width) x 228 (drop). To get the right drop/length, you should measure from about 10cm above the top of your window as that's where the pole will go, to where you want them to end, which will be floor length for you.

For gathered (pencil pleat, usually - they have a tale with strings that you pull) curtains, each curtain needs to be close to the window width. For eyelet (most commonly available, ready made) or tab top (not in fashion, anyhow) they need to be between 1.3 and 2 times the width between them as they don't need to still look gathered or folded when open but do need tk meet in the middle without straining

Sorry those are rough sizes I can't remember the exact. Ready made curtains only come in a few sizes. The 90 inch/228cm drop is correct for patio doors etc. The widths relate to standard fabric widths x 1, x 1.5 or x 2. Normally these suit narrow, medium and wide windows with a bit of adjustment. It's not an exact science.

And a tape measure is your friend. You can get then fir a couple of quid in wilko or wherever and will use it for lots of things.

This is a great guide on what to do/what not to do.

Former curtain sales advisor here. There are two main styles of curtain when you buy ready made, pencil pleat and eyelet.

Pencil pleat are the more traditional type that look “pleated” at the top due to you gathering them in with strings attached to the back of the curtain. To give you enough material to create this gather, you need approximately double the amount of material in comparison to the size of your window. So for the space that you’ve measured at 220cm, a pair of curtains at 230cm wide (curtains measurements are given per curtain, so each curtain in this set is 230cm wide - 460cm of material] is what you need. Pencil pleat curtains can be hung on a track or a pole with rings attached to which you can hook the tape onto.

Eyelet curtains are generally thought of as a little bit more modern, and don’t require you to gather them in using strings. The eyelets {rings} are set into the curtain already and you feed the curtain onto the curtain pole to hang it. As you don’t gather them, you can get away with slightly less material, usually around 1.5 times the width of the space you measured as they still won’t sit flat on the pole due to the eyelets. So 1.5 times 220 would be 330, meaning you could get away with a set of curtains at 170 wide, giving you 340cm of material altogether. You could also use the 230 width to make the curtains look more generously sized when closed, but that’s personal preference.

Certain shops list their sizes differently to above, but go with a rule of 2x width for pencil please, 1.5 width for eyelet and you won’t go far wrong.

I can answer more questions if helpful too :)

Yeh sorry @SpringFan I do have a window opposite the large window which is only a half size which is where the 134 has come from.

I have measure above the curtains so the measurements I've put on here are with the extra space too. The drops I need are 220.
I just didn't know how much extra material I need and weather the curtains are pairs or singles but I see the ones I'm looking at are pairs.

Thank you @babblingbumblingbandofbaboons that's a great schpeel you have given me!!
And thank you everyone else too. :)

You are very welcome 😊