Curtain poles for a bay window - how are the bendable ones?

[Flyingwithoutacare]

We have a bay window in a poorly insulated living room so feel as though curtains would help keep things warm.

Has anyone ever tried the bendable curtain poles? How are they?

We need to have one bracket at either end of the pole, and then one bracket in the middle, as we can only have one set of curtains. We can’t have additional brackets.

I’ll link to the pole we’re thinking of.

https://www.dunelm.com/product/ashton-bay-curtain-pole-1000219768?defaultSkuId=30847620

Ikea do one, or did…. Avoid that one it’s awful!

Can’t comment on this one, but I am interested too as I need to replace the Ikea one 🫣

My daughter is having this issue in her house. The trouble with the bendy poles they've found is that they are too flimsy to support curtains of sufficient weight to really insulate the room.

She has solved the issue by putting the curtain straight across, screening off the whole bay, and putting a storage/window seat in the bay, so it's not floor space being lost.

We got some custom made, for very heavy velvet curtains. They are great, no sagging issues at all. From this place.

https://www.bradburytracks.co.uk/?utm_term=bradbury%20tracks%20ltd&utm_campaign=TB+-+Bradbury+Tracks+-+Brand&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=8492419492&hsa_cam=1841889518&hsa_grp=118941951732&hsa_ad=534449819646&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-820903898139&hsa_kw=bradbury%20tracks%20ltd&hsa_mt=e&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=1841889518&gbraid=0AAAAAC_bl27ebR8UmwmgEj391ZjMGE1ul&gclid=Cj0KCQiAm9fLBhCQARIsAJoNOcv7QrGL8JE-iuNS8yZPjAPJm5R4nePY7BYJn9IJmvriWpvAVMf-S8waAjROEALw_wcB

Interesting!

Do you remember approx how much it cost @drspouse?

There will be a lot of pressure on the single fixing in the middle.
Are your walls really solid?
If they are old Victorian or Edwardian walls then they may not be.

I used a plastic bendable strip from argos for pur large bay. Says what weight cuetains it takes. Looks nice as its just white

Has lots of attachments so weight is spread.

We solved this one in a previous house by using a ceiling mounted curtain track for bay windows. No recollection where it came from, but that thing was immovable and held very heavy fully lined curtains (controlled a bit like a blind).

Pretty rubbish to be fair, I had to buy extra brackets to make it stable. Is secure but still wobbles and is a knack to closing. Need more brackets and C type rings now.

We have an Argos bendable bay window pole and it's been absolutely fine for 8 years now. Our curtains are 3 metres long and velvet, so pretty heavy! It's a Victorian house with thick stone walls.

We had a pole and C-rings in a bay window. There was a knack to getting the rings over the brackets but they did work. The pole was custom made and fitted by John Lewis.

Ours just about work with some light curtains. But its difficult opening and closing them. The curtains come off the track sometimes, other times we have difficulty getting them around the corner. They kind of do what we were after so I don't regret it but they do need to be reset a lot.

I put this metal one that you bend yourself up when I first moved in as I wasn't sure what I wanted and there wasn't a track in place. It was absolutely fine, the curtains closed nicely round the corners, I remember buying loads of extra ones of the little things with holes in whatever they are called.

After I had decorated I replaced it with a brass bay window pole £££££££ - I don't draw my curtains round the bend anymore as they stick in the corner and it is a complete pita.

We have the Dunelm bendy one and heavy velvet style curtains. They've been up 5 years and absolutely fine!

www.dunelm.com/product/ashton-bay-curtain-pole-1000219768?defaultSkuId=30847620 this one, but we've screwed the brackets into the ceiling and not the wall. They've been great!

I would never have thought to screw the brackets into the ceiling. Unfortunately our ceiling is lathe and plaster so I’m just not convinced it would hold the weight!

The curtain flexible rail is intriguing, does it allow the curtains to hang proud of the windows a little bit? As we have a wooden window frame that just out probably an inch or so.

I've got Swish corded tracks (not poles) in my bay window, screwed into lath and plaster ceiling with heavyweight lined curtains.
Installed in 1985.

Do you mean the Fineline one? Yes, but you can also get longer brackets than the standard ones if you need to.

In our old house we had Swish ones on both bay windows purchased from John Lewis they were up for at least 25 years with heavy curtains on them. Not quite sure what brand we’ve got on our bays here or how old they are they are fixed to the ceiling inside the bays.

DH tells me this is exactly what we had in our previous house that I tried to describe above...

Terry Fabrics had some good options for this, although it's been a fair few years since I last bought them

https://www.terrysfabrics.co.uk/products/ball-28mm-3-sided-eyelet-bay-window-pole-bay-pole-chrome?variant=42442821828796

So, the Dunelm ones won’t work because the diameter of the bracket that’s screwed into the wall is 6.5cm, but we only have 4cm of wall space between the top of the window frame and the bottom of the coving.

I’ve looked at the curtain tracks that go into the ceiling, but our coving comes out quite far from the wall, so there’d be a huge gap between the wall and the curtain which would look very odd at the sides.

It might mean we can’t have curtains! 😞

These look good but the fitting instructions say the bracket is 5cm, close but so far! 🤦🏼‍♀️

We have a big bay window and had new curtains fitted downstairs a couple of years ago, heavy linen fully lined. The company fitted a plastic bendable track which at first couldn't hold the weight of the curtains, it literally fell down. But it's OK after they added a few brackets. It's not great though

When we did the upstairs room a few months ago we went to different company, chose very heavy, lined fabric and opted for a bespoke made Metropole track. Which is brilliant.

But not cheap. The track alone was £1,000 (we see it as a once in a lifetime upgrade).