Bay windows - three sets of poles or tracks instead?

[Kai1981]

I have a standard large Victorian bay window in the living room.

Is there any reason I couldn't fit three separate curtain poles, one each for the two angled ones on the left and right (each with a single curtain) and then a larger one in the centre (with a pair of curtains).

The space between the windows is relatively tight anyway, so I think that once the pencil pleated curtains are in, it won't be that noticable, if at all. The current blind frames are fitted like that and they practically touch each other.

I like the look of curtains hanging between the window frames, rather than just the two edges too.

But everyone seems to buy (expensive) bay window curtain poles so wanted to check if I'd missed something?

How would you deal with the finials at the end of each pole to stop the curtains falling off if the space is tight? You can have a curved pole but still keep curtains between windows.

You can get them without fancy finials, essentially they just have plain metal finishes at the ends which don't really stick out at all. Or I might get tracks which are virtually invisible behind pencil pleats anyway.

Every single review I've seen for bay window poles and tracks from the likes of John Lewis, B and Q etc has been poor. The made to measure route is too expensive so wondered if this is a more straightforward DIY option.

I’m looking at this one as the house we’re hoping to buy has a bay window. It’s got good reviews www.dunelm.com/product/ashton-4m-eyelet-metal-bay-pole-dia-28mm-1000155336

You'd have the central pair of curtains taking up a bit of space either side of the middle window when they are pulled back during the day if you have separate poles.

The flipside of that is that if you have two large curtains that meet in the middle of the bay they can be quite heavy - we tried a track and two curtains on a pull cord to go round the entire bay and it was too heavy to work with the cord pull! But imagine the window with the four curtains hanging down during the day as well and see what looks better.

Thank you!

Unfortunately the Dunelm poles have quite a few one star reviews saying they are difficult to put up (3 people??) and not that great unfortunately. Sometimes I wished I didn't look at reviews in such depth.

The curtain weight is another factor @ChicChaos as you say, having had bay window tracks in the past that kept falling off due to the weight, I'm tempted to go with three. There's lots of space between the windows where the curtains can hang when open.

I think it would limit how far you could pull the curtains back as you'd have to place the brackets far enough in not to clash. We used this system (not cheap but good quality and easy to cut to fit, quality is really good), I don't know if you've seen it? www.polesandblinds.com/rolls-neo-3-sided-28mm-bay-window-curtain-pole-540cm-wall-fix?gclid=CjwKCAjw4KyJBhAbEiwAaAQbE_YzwojzBjafBw2o6RLvP9oaV9Afca9QIznK-SggPilVnNvWvL3haBoCCzEQAvD_BwE

We’ve got three poles on our bay window - we got a specialist handyman in to put them up. They have finials at each end and kind of bodge together in the junctions which you can’t see. We have four very lightweight unlined tab curtains on them which we don’t open often as we’re right on the street so the issue of bunching in the middle doesn’t arise.

Thank you! The pole set from Poles and Windows looks really good actually. Will take a proper look.