Washing dry clean only curtains

[twiceinalifetime]

Has anyone ever washed curtains labelled as 'dry clean only' in a standard washing machine please?

Good or bad results?

We did suit trousers on a hand wash cycle the other day and they were completely fine. Depends on how precious the curtains are though!

Yup, I did it. Bad mistake. 15cm too short afterwards

I have. Depends what they are made of.

Was going to say expect some shrinkage!!
Never dry clean anything, all gets chucked on a cycle in the machine!

I washed the brown velvet bedroom curtains the previous owner left as we needed something until I could get nicer curtains, but since the only room he smoked in was the bedroom, they were a bit smoky.
They shrank about 6 inches.
And turned out to be peach coloured!

I did it. Curtains shrank, about 15cm, the linings didn’t.

What material are they? I put a lot of dry clean only stuff in the machine on a very quick wash.

The curtains in my childhood bedroom are still a little bit too short and have been for over 20 years because they were put through the washing machine. No idea how careful my mum was about picking a suitable cycle (although if I had to hazard a guess, I would say she didn’t choose the most appropriate as she generally doesn’t put enough thought into that kind of thing).
I guess it depends on what they already of and if you have a suitable cycle on your machine (ie cool and not too long).

I did. They shrank. But when I ironed them out they were ok.

Would you be pissed off if they shrank and you had to replace?
Unless you kind of want an excuse to replace them, I would dry clean, it's cheaper than new curtains.