Curtains! So expensive.

[shellye40]

OK, please help. I have 2 similar quotes. I need 17 metres of fabric to make a pair of curtains and a couple of small Roman Blinds. I know it depends on cost of fabric. But a pole, fit and make curtains how much should I be paying? The quotes are coming in at £1500+. My husband is still in shock!

I still wince when I think what we paid to have our curtains made, old house - big windows in every room. We both nearly fainted when we got the quote in for them even buying them in the sale we were still £5k

Does your fabric have a repeating pattern that needs matching? If so that may be driving the price up as you'll be buying more metres than you actually need to cover the windows.

It's hard to buy secondhand IME if you have more than one window you need to match.

It's also worth looking on ebay for the fabric you like - it is often much cheaper.

I managed to get some Sanderson fabric I liked for ds's curtains for £15/metre instead of £60/m. I think I waited for about 2 months for it to come up with somebody offering it by the metre - if I'd wanted smaller bits then that would have been cheaper and I wouldn't have had to wait for so long...

That's a huge amount.

Where are you looking for fabric and who is making your curtains? You need to find someone local who makes curtains, then find your fabric. I found fabric from market stalls (£5 per metre!) and fabric shops, the most I paid was £12. I haven't paid more than £200 for my curtains including material and they're fully lined, and I have huge windows. Pattern repeat will change the cost though.

They are only rectangles - no need for sewing course. I made mine as a first sewing project. 4m wide with a 2m drop, with pleats and lined. Took a day to make.

I did an online course with the national deign academy and now can make my own professional-standard curtains. It was well worth the time and effort! They cover stuff like pattern matching and different pleats, lining, interlining and Roman blinds. It's still not cheap, I get designer fabrics from eBay at about half rrp and make my own but it still cost about £450 to do the living room curtains just in fabric and lining etc.

I disagree that it's particularly quick and easy - if you want to do them to professional standard with no visible stitches there's a lot of hand-sewing involved, which is why it costs so much to have them made. But it's very satisfying to do your own and you can get exactly what you want!

Another vote for Natural Curtain Company! We have bought from them before and were very happy with our extra wide fully lines curtains. Lovely fabrics and customer service

Curtain exchange is brilliant - we have a 9ft by 10ft window and got some marvellous interlined brocade curtains for £500.

Might have to get my sewing machine out!

I've used www.campbellcreations.co.uk many times and really recommend them.