Curtains into bay with dropped ceiling

[Zandana123]

Hi all,

Just had the lounge decorated and haven't yet used this room since moving into the house so don't know what to do with curtains.

My wife would like full length curtains to the floor.

How would we mount them?

I think we want them to follow the shape of the bay so the dimensions aren't lost with the curtains closed.

Only thing I can think of is a ceiling track, that is mounted 12 inch out from the window to clear the window sill, but feel it might look silly.

Issue is, with the dropped ceiling in the bay, there is no gap above the windows so the curtains have to go right to the ceiling.

Anyone have any options or something similar?

We had a window like this in a previous house and stuck with the protruding track following the bay that was there when we moved in. It looked fine but the track was never very robust because it stuck out so far. This limited the weight of curtains we could use. You don't say how large the room is but unless it's very small I would be tempted to 'sacrifice' the bay and mount straight across in front of it. You could add window blinds for use when you wanted privacy but didn't need the insulation of the curtains.

We have windows like this too. Currently we’ve got white wooden shutter/blind things in the living room. They’re good for privacy and they look nice and simple, but they aren’t very cosy. I’m thinking of adding a track in front of the blinds for some curtains. They couldn’t be floor length though because there’s a radiator underneath. I think floor length would look really odd too. Also the dropped ceiling sounds very hollow and flimsy when I tap it, so I’m not sure it’s strong enough to hold the weight of decent curtains.

DD has the front bedroom upstairs with the same bay window set up. She has roller blinds mounted into the upvc window frames (not ideal, but the previous owners had already drilled holes for a nasty curtain track on the frames anyway). Then she has floor length curtains mounted outside the bay. Behind the curtains into the bay, she has a little sort of reading nook full of cushions and a storage bench.

Lots of our neighbours have the same layout, so I’ve been nosey to try to see how others have solved the problem. Some have shutters, one has Roman blinds (cosier than wood but must cut down on a lot of light), some just have privacy film (I think they are student houses), and others have curtains that seem to be squished right up against the glass. There doesn’t seem to be an ideal solution.

We have same window in our new house....I can’t decide what to do either?

Not sure I fully understand (it's late and I'm easily confused )
We have a bay in our house and have a curtain rail that fits in and short curtains that skim the radiator, it works really well. We had the debate about floor length on the existing pole or shorter in bay and my husband insisted on the in bay, I quite like it now (not that I'd tell him).

Ours is this... sorry about the mess, just moved in!

If you want curtains into the bay you will have to top-fix a track (to the ceiling) if you want long curtains this will have to be slightly set out from the window so that the curtains clear the cill but NOT 30cm as curtains bend and don't need to hang straight down. A compromise can be reached!
I don't like short curtains but that is a personal choice.

I think I will go with Roman Blinds... neighbour has them and they look nice and neat

We have wooden blinds that work well but don't do much to keep the room warm. My neighbour (same layout) has curtain tracks affixed to the ceiling with floor length curtains. His windows open outwards though so the tracks are close to the window. I'd put floor length curtains on a track above the window rather than across the bay opening.

No idea why but can't seem to post pictures on the app. Here's our room.

Think will go curtains across the outside of the bay, and maybe wooden blinds or shutters in the bay

Here it is

We have blinds in the lounge, I wanted to add curtains as well but once the blind was up I was happy with the look. We're getting shutters fitted on the bedroom.

I have a track that runs round the bay and across the walls either side. It does the job and is fairly unobtrusive- a pelmet would hide it but I'm not a fan of those.

The problem I had was that my dropped ceiling isn't solid so I had issues with fixing the track to it. It was a PITA and I hope never to have to do it again!