AIBU to want long curtains ?

[Rosemary46]

New flat, tall ceilings, high windows, small budget.

Impossible.

Ikea , H&M etc only sell curtains that are 250cm long. Why??? There must be tens of thousands of properties like mine across the UK.

Everything “made to measure” is a bloody fortune. I have spent all my money on boring things like central heating and rot treatment for the bathroom floor.

AIBU to try to stick a bit of fabric onto the end of Ikea curtains somehow? Iron- on tape maybe ? I haven’t a clue- I can hardly sew on a button let alone make curtains.

Try b and q

I got the longest ones from Dunelm and got a seamstress to take them in at the bottom

Sorry I’ve been painting ( walls not art) all day.

Many thanks to all of you for the most excellent suggestions. Good to see I’m not alone in my dilemma.

Hi everyone, I’m back to update you on my curtain search. I don’t have any curtains yet but at least I’m a little clearer as to what my problems are .

1. Most ready made curtains are eyelet top and I need tape top / pencil pleat, because it’s a bay window ( needs a track and not a pole ).

1. Most extra long curtains only come in extra wide and I have a wide bay window and a narrow single window.

1. Most second hand / gumtree / eBay bargains are a one off and I need curtains for two windows.

1. My budget is smaller than even stores like Dunelm and Curtains 247.

I did find extra long ones in dunelm that were OK but they were £160-175 and I’d need two for the wide window and one for narrow so £500-600.

For that price I’d be better to pay £700 and get lovely made to measure. All theoretical of course as I don’t have £600 either.

I’ve been stalking EBay for Ikea curtains in 300 drop but I need 4 identical pairs ( Ikea curtains are only 145 wide ) and most people are selling 1-2 pairs. Plus lots are eyelet top or voiles .

Le Redoute curtains are mostly eyelet.

I’m still looking in TK Max, EBay and Gumtree.

Thanks to all for the suggestions.

Mine are 325 cms. You have to get them made.

😫😢😭😰😨😱

@sexnotgender please could you send me a link to the eBay curtain seller🤗🤗🤗

So in terms of size you are looking for 300cm length by what width for each window?

For fabric I’d expect to pay probably between £10-£30 per m, for 150cm fabric. So just for 1m with you are looking at 20-60 for that length. (I’m assuming £7pm for cheap furnishing fabric and £3 pm for lining).

If you want 12m width (4 pairs at 2 curtains per pair * 145cm width), the absolute minimum on fabric alone must be nearly £240, and that’s without pattern matching anywhere, with hems, and with a fairly cheap furnishing fabric.

You can convert eyelet top curtains to pencil pleat, if you have about 15cm spare in height.

Also, possibly a silly question but are you certain you are assuming the right widths for curtains as 12m width of fabric seems an awful lot? It took me a while to realise that 118cm “width” curtains was actually the width per curtain not in total. Made life a lot easier once I knew that.

I’m looking for 274cm drop. One window is 4.5m and the other 1.2m.

It’s a bay window so that’s the width of the track not the window . But obviously curtains 4.5 meter wide need a lot of track each side so they can be completely off the window when open.

So if I was having them made I’d need 8 drops at roughly 3m each ( allowing for hems and tape at the top ), so yes, 24m. So I’d be £240 for fabric plus tape plus making . Nothing for PM as I’d want a plain or semi plain fabric .

This is NOT my house ( I can’t claim the credit for that interior decor! ) but it’s a similar type of window and layout.

Vertical blinds are the way forward imho. You can pay and get black out, if the light is an issue.
Get a local blind company out, and they will be much more reasonable than curtains,and often fit for free too.

So I think it would be possible to do it with something like this then, maybe, if you want plain fabrics?

www.elmetcurtains.co.uk/curtains/select/Raffia/Charcoal

I think the 52”x108” would do the 1.2m window generously, and then the 132”x108” would do the bay less generously but still okay.

www.elmetcurtains.co.uk/curtains/select/Raffia/Charcoal

Still a vast amount of money (I think £350) but a lot lot less than £600.

Otherwise there’s an ikea in lille which is about an hours drive from Calais, so if you were on holiday you could pick them up - this would depend what you wanted though as the heavier weight ones would be nearly the same cost as the above and you’d have to change the tops and stitch them together which frankly sounds like a faff.

m.ikea.com/fr/fr/catalog/functional/10374/10654/

(Or could you not have floor length curtains? If the windows aren’t floor length, you might be able to take 55cm off which would put you back into 228cm lengths which is much more commonly stocked?)

Altering eyelet curtains to tape is fairly simple.
Use a continuous piece of tape and join the curtains at the top.
If you've got a mate with a basic sewing machine you should be able to do it together

If you put 'IKEA 300cm curtains' into eBay it lists some including a set of 4 floral grey ones at £50?

I cut the top off Ikea eyelet ones and added pencil pleat tape and lining. Unpicking the hem and redoing it at the bottom made up for the length I lost. Think they were the 300 length ones though.

For other windows, I bought the cheapest plain fabric I could and lining fabric, and made them myself - they are miles miles nicer than our one pair of expensive shop-bought ones. Lots of useful YouTube videos but you do need lots of floor space - there’s a lot of fabric to wrangle.

You might be able to buy some on ebay.

I bought some that were still in packaging, the seller had had them for a while and they'd been lying about because in the end she didn't use them. They're lovely! There are also companies on there who will make curtains for you made to measure, really reasonably priced.

Have you tried www.curtains-2go.co.uk/plain-colours.htm

Check this out OP. Loads of options!

www.madura.fr/fr_fr/catalogsearch/result/?q=rideau#q=rideau&idx=magento_fr_fr_products&p=0&fR%5Bmad_fixing_type_filter%5D%5B0%5D=Fronceur&is_v=1

Agreed, ebay! I've had some beautiful curtains from there. Also look at door curtains as they are usually slightly longer.

If you're going to hang pencil pleats on a track, you'll need to have the kind of track where you hang the curtains on the eyelets below the track, and the top edge of the curtain is fractionally below the bottom of the track itself.

If you hang the curtains up against the track the track will push the top of the curtains forward and spoil the look. This is especially noticeable with French (triple) pleats and negates the amount of money and effort spent to achieve a beautiful, elegant finish.

As an alternative, have you looked into the Europleat style? These are pleats hung reverse to the usual way, with the pleats facing the window, and a modern look can be achieved with less than the full width of pleats facing the room. I've seen some interesting examples on Pinterest.

I don't know where you're based, OP, but there are a couple of second hand curtain places out there. I went to one near Edinburgh, and found a pair of 290cm drop curtains for next to nothing. I know there's another one near London, and probably others. Worth a look?

Here’s a second hand curtain place in Boston Spa thecurtainexchange.co.uk/product-category/second-hand/ - lots of tall Victorian houses round here so you may find something suitable!

You could always buy ready-made curtains for the bay window from somewhere like Dunelm or B&M. Buy the longest drop available in a colour you like then buy an extra pair (minimum drop available, same width) and use the extra pair to provide the extra drop you need for the main curtains. You will avoid all the need for hemming, sewing the sides, lining and putting on curtain tape etc - all you need to be able to do (twice over) is cut the "extra" curtain to the length of extra drop you need and join it on to the main curtain, which you could do by hand or machine.

I recently bought thermal-lined faux-silk curtains from Dunelm and added on the extra length I needed by doing this. For it to work best, I think you would need to choose curtains for the extra drop which are a contrast colour ie you end up with a full-length set with a contrasting colour at the bottom.

It cost me c£80 to arrange curtains for my large bedroom bay window this way, with the benefit of thermal lining thrown in!

To add to the above, you could equally have the contrast colour at the top, if you use the top part of shorter curtains, then get the rest of the length from the other set of curtains (ie cut their heading tape off then join them to the shorter curtain). Hope this makes sense!