To think made to measure curtains should be cheaper than this?

[Lennon80]

I had someone over from Hillary's blinds to quote me on some curtains for my living room, a large ish bay window and curtains to fit my French patio doors. The curtains (not the most expensive material) alone would be 900 pounds... is that what they cost? Fuck me sideways I wasn't expecting that! I have not bought curtains for a large room or needed meade to measure before. Any advice gratefully received. TIA

We got some from John Lewis a few years ago. 3 widths of material in each curtain and over 2 metre drop - so large. Fully lined. That was about £500 (made to measure). So maybe worth shopping around.

Quite surprised at that. I know curtains are more expensive than blinds but Hillary's did all the blinds made to measure at my place. 3 blackouts, a large vertical and a Venetian. Came up to 600 total.

I'm having déjà vu.

How much do you think they should be?
Doesn't sound beyond the realm of reasonableness and Hillarys aren exactly budget curtains.
John Lewis with be cheaper by far.

I think dunelm has a price calculator - enter the size of your windows, choose a fabric and get a price. If the repeat isn't in your favour it can take a lot of material. I'm always amazed...

Maybe you chose the most expensive fabric? A cheaper fabric might make them more affordable.

There are plenty of online calculators that would give you a comparative price. But handmade quality curtains are expensive. There's a lot of labour time in handmade curtains.

We have bought from 247 curtains and had a wide window, but not full length for £145. You can spend absolutely anything on curtains though.

Our local independent shop sells readymades and cuts them to your custom length for about £20. Bargain!

Those sort of places are overpriced. I got silk curtains for 3 windows for that from an independent place. I would have a google and see if there is one near you. The company I used is called the curtain exchange. They have small franchises all over so there might be one close to you.

The curtains for our 5m wide bay, only sill height, cost 1600 pounds from our high street shop. John Lewis was a similar price.

Ouch!

Try somewhere local, not a chain. I've had curtains made for about £200. Online is also an option if you are happy to measure yourself - last year I ordered some for a huge window for £500, made with Moon & Son tweed. They are perfect.

That's sounds reasonable to me, a bay window and French doors is a really large place. We have just done a bay through Hilary's for £450. Initially they quoted £750 so I told them no way and I wasn't spending more than £400 and they came down immediately.

We are now doing an identically sized bay in another part of the house. I don't want to go with Hilary's as the blind is nothing special at all and has already broke once and I hated the sales guy but quotes are as follows:

Dun elm (not sure if fitting is included) £402

Next (not inc fitting and they charge for measuring) £619

John Lewis (inc fitting) £645

Hilary's £450 inc fitting

The material is broadly similar for each - a sort of oatmeal coloured linen. Nexts version is poor quality IMO (only 15% linen)

So we may end up back with hilarious but as you can see they haven't come out pricey and they can fit the fastest. However as I say I wasn't much impressed and you must negotiate

Sorry for all the typos hopefully it makes some sense

Find a local curtain maker and source your own fabric. You can get some fabulous deals on ebay on whole rolls of fabric.

To work out how much fabric you need:

Measure the width of the pole/track/where the track will be. Double it, then divide it by 140 (measuring in cms). Round the result up. That's the number of widths of fabric you need. So if your window is 270cm wide you'd go for 4 widths

Measure the drop and add 30cm to allow for hems. Choose a fabric - fabric websites always say what the pattern repeat is. Take length plus hems and divide by repeat. Round result up to next whole number, and multiply by the repeat. Then multiply by number of widths.

E.g. 215cm drop, 64cm pattern repeat. 215+30=245/64=3.82. Round up to 4 x 64 = 256cm of fabric per drop

Wow thank you ladies this is all really helpful! So I guess its not ridiculous (the first fabric I chose he quoted me 2K!!!!!!) but it seems so expensive for what they are.

I too was quoted ridiculous prices for not particularly nice curtains - local independent shops were no exception. That was the reason I bought a sewing machine and made my own curtains. So much cheaper and exactly to my taste!

For our massive bay window I bought 2 pairs of curtains from IKEA, they are all really long so had to shorten them a few inches on my sewing machine. Cost me a grand total of £65 and they look bloody amazing.

Try Terry's Fabrics, I've always had really good service from them for blinds and readymades and they offer made to measure curtains too.

if you buy readymade and need them shorter - remember for those with curtain tape you need to cut down from the top of the curtain.
so remove the tape - cut to correct length with an overlap and sew the tape back on
not sure about eyelet curtains.

Oh FFS didn’t look at the fucking date. Fucking zombie thread.

@NeilPetark

Oh FFS didn’t look at the fucking date. Fucking zombie thread.

And now it's a closed zombie thread.