Curtains for bay windows

[Cleanqueennot]

Please be kind! I may be asking a stupid question here but I’m really a bit clueless when it comes to diy. How do you get curtains to go round a bay window? Am I going to have to pay loads of money to somewhere like Hilary’s so they can come out and tailor make curtain poles/tracks? Surely there is a more affordable option that doesn’t involve me taking a joinery/carpentry course? Not really sure where to begin!

Get a bay track in a hardware store or Amazon. It’s flexible and you soak it in hot water to make it more flexible to bend around corners. Fix the fixing points in the walls and the runners bits on the track you can hook the curtains on to. It’s very cheap.

www.amazon.co.uk/Bendable-Curtain-Flexible-Curtains-Fittings/dp/B09QKZ63PX/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=Bay+Window+Curtain+Rails&qid=1674514021&sr=8-3

Thanks @Krakenes I’ll have a look! That does sound quite complicated to me but maybe easier than it sounds. I’m just useless at this kind of thing haha

It’s really not! I’ve done it myself single handed. Get a good drill, rawl plugs and screws, step ladder, and a tape measure. You will use all of these things again and again and become more confident. Loads of you tube videos to help you. It’s a very easy skill to learn and you can then put up most things by yourself!

Thanks, you’ve motivated me to get this done! I CAN DO THIS!!! 😁

I got one in dunelm. It's aluminium and you just bend it to fit round the corners. Super easy.

Once you have the gear you can do anything! In my wfh lunch hour, I put up a new coat rail, 4 paintings, fixed the wonky door flap, removed the brackets from the dodgy radiator cover. To quote Blur, ‘it gives me a sense of enormous well-being’!!

Oh that sounds easy. I’ll have a look! Thanks

Love the blur quote. Guess I might have to stick to feeding pigeons for that one 😂

You sound like the kind of person I would have paid to do it for me if I could afford you haha

If you have a standard 3-sided bay, check ready-made sets of poles, they not are as expensive as customized ones. And you can hag any types of curtains. Check here: www.polesandblinds.com/bay-windows/curtain-poles-for-bay-windows/3-sided-bay-poles . With tracks be careful - they dont go on eyelet curtains.

Thanks, I’ll take a look. I’m leaning more towards curtain poles rather than tracks anyway. I like the look of a pole and we also don’t have space for a track because the window frame goes almost right up to our coving. At least with a pole we could screw it into the frame

We're getting someone in to measure and then install some - 3 bay windows, two large and one small. She's talked us through poles vs track but we haven't decided which to go with yet. It looks like track has improved dramatically since my childhood!

@RidingMyBike I’m so tempted to just pay someone to come and do this. Did you go through a company or just find someone local? If you don’t mind me asking, how much did it cost?

We decided against doing it ourselves as so much to do and lack of time (there's many curtain poles and multiple blinds to go up too!) it would be quicker and more efficient to get someone in to do it all in one go. We have no DIY skills and no interest in acquiring any (tried at a previous house, hated it!), plus the house is freshly plastered and painted so didn't want to make a mess of it.

We'd had a bad experience with Hillary's in our previous house so weren't keen on using a big chain again. But saw a post a while ago on NextDoor for recommendations for local curtain makers and wrote down all the recommendations - then looked all of them up. One turned out to be a husband and wife team - she makes curtains and blinds, he fits them.

Don't have the quote back yet but it's clear there are multiple price options. They would have been happy to fit poles we'd bought ourselves from eg Homebase or could supply and fit different types. Same with the curtains - some windows we'll reuse existing ones and I'll alter them, some we'll delay buying until we've lived there a while.

She did say that the bay poles you can buy in shops with 'joints' in that you bend tend to only work if you have certain sizes of window

The quote's due in this week - I can let you know how much the bay window part came to?

Silent gliss tracks are fantastic really good quality and won't buckle or fall down under the weight of the curtains.

Another alternative would be blinds. We have "fake" long curtains on either side of the bay on the wall (not quite wide enough to pull and meet - but never needed as there is a sofa in the bay), and coordinated roman blinds.

We found the tracks that you put up yourself just don't run properly 😔 We've ended up paying a lot to John Lewis and they will arrive next month so I can report back on quality etc

Our window dressings are inherited from when we moved in.
it's a 5 window bay and they chose to go with 5 Roman blinds. Right pita every morning and evening.
They'll do for this year though but I'm. It sure what to replace with. It's a very wide windowsill and I don't like half length curtains.

That would be brilliant thanks!

We already have wooden blinds that we will keep. We want curtains as well for warmth. We live in a very cold part of the uk and I want to get to get thermal curtains to help make it warmer in our house. I also think curtains have a nice cosy look!

Yes, I’m worried that installing these ourselves just won’t end up being good as neither of us are DIY savvy. I would be very interested in how your John Lewis experience goes @YukoandHiro if you wouldn’t mind reporting back! X

Ours are 3 bay windows with 3 blinds inside which we inherited from previous owners. We’ve been here a couple of years but have prioritised other parts of the house. I’m hoping in the next year or so we will be able to get all the curtains sorted in the house once and for all! @HumourReplacementTherapy im not a fan of half length curtains either, and especially not for a bay window. Ours would have to be full length. It just looks so much better IMO.