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.

They are excellent, I seem to remember, but not cheap! £100 approx or more for an effective one

This is exactly what I have done too. Thick floor to ceiling curtains straights across and vintage chest with a seat cushion on. Everyone who comes over comments on how cosy it makes the bay look too.

It’s not the biggest room, and our TV is on one side of the bay so we couldn’t have curtains going straight across, sadly.

One on my neighbours has custom shutters. She says they really keep the heat in. And they look gorgeous.

Makes a lovely secret reading nook too!

We ended up getting ours professionally fitted by a high street shop who did a fab job. Costed a couple hundred but worth it as our windows look nice but the bay is a funny shape!
And lucky we did as it turns out the ceiling of the bay is a few cms lower on one side than the other. Curtain guy said this is common in older houses (ours is 1930s) and was able to account for this in the making of the curtains and fitting of the rail.
thought I’d mention as I would never have thought of that and would have ended up with uneven curtains if I had tried to do it myself! 😊

I've never used a bendable curtain rail but have had one custom made to fit which was hundreds of pounds but really good, I think we had about 5 brackets holding it up, we then had C rings. Can't remember the supplier though. The brackets were attached to our wooden windows.

@drspouse recommended Bradbury Tracks. We had one of their tracks for a large (but non bay) window over 20 years ago and that was about £200 then - track would have been over 6 ft long. Absolutely beautiful quality though. Quite glad she mentioned them because I'm in need of a curtain track in our new house.

Finally, if you don't think you can attach a curtain pole or track then think about interlined roman blinds on each side of the bay. Cheaper than curtains and very cozy. I wouldn't cover the bay, it's such a lovely feature to have.

Thought I would come on to update.

I contacted some curtain/pole companies and was quoted £500-600 for a made to measure Swish track 🫠

I carried on researching and came across Speedy Products Fineline Curtain track, which is an aluminium track you can bend by hand. For £43 I thought I’d give it a try! And the brackets were only about an inch high, perfect…. If it worked!

I did the bending - there is a YouTube video I recommend watching if you fancy giving it a go - then we got it installed.

I am OVER THE MOON. I love it when I find a niche product that really works, so hats off to Speedy Products whoever they are!

www.johnlewis.com/speedy-products-fineline-track/p113145850?tmad=c&tmcampid=7&s_share=jlappios_Y29tLmFwcGxlLm1vYmlsZW5vdGVzLlNoYXJpbmdFeHRlbnNpb24=

This seems a great solution. I’m sick of fighting with my swish bendable plastic tracks. I have four big bay windows with floor to ceiling silk curtains. The ones with pull cords at the sides have tension that’s gone wrong so one side is tight and the other floppy, or the cord comes out of the track and goes taut. If the join in the middle isn’t exactly flush the curtain can come right off when you draw it. All the little plastic hooks go brittle in the sun and snap regularly. And the walls they’re fitted to aren’t all in great condition, so you daren’t pull too hard. I have one small non-bay window that has a wooden pole with curtains on rings and it’s a simple joy by comparison. I might consider shutters in future if I could afford them. My previous house had wooden slatted blinds that were trouble free. But I am now very tempted by the idea of just hanging the curtains on a wooden pole across the bay

@Flyingwithoutacare that is the one I linked to above - I rated it too. It is the one you can get longer brackets for.