How to put curtains up with steels above doors?

[Harridan1981]

We had a large extension done last year, on the back wall is nearly 4m of bi-folds (not popular on here but we love them) and on the side door a 2m set of sliding door. There is also a large window, but not too fussed about them.

At the moment they are still curtainless, because even my very handy husband isn't sure how to put them up properly. The bifold has a steel directly above so getting a fixing would be a problem.

The sliders don't, but obviously the walls surrounding them are just dobbed and dabbed on plasterboard etc. Dh initially wanted to mount some wood to get a fixing in, but that looks a bit odd. Am pretty sure there is a way round this one.

Has anyone any tips/ideas? The steel in particular presents a problem, or does he just need to break out the big guns tool wise?!

I’m not sure many people with bifolds have curtains TBH. When they are closed, I assume you wouldn’t be able to fold the doors back? I would have thought you could have put a bar of wood a bit further forward to avoid the steel and attach to that? But then you’d have a gap between them and the door. I have seen some bifolds with internal blinds but these may have to be made with the doors. I certainly wouldn’t be drilling into the steel though.

Some curtain rods can be hung from the ceiling ( saw some in IKEA)
Is that an option?

Hillary's do blinds I believe that fit very discretely onto the top of each glass pane...

This is an issue in my road - not steels but insanely hard walls

What previous owners of my house did is nail a piece of timber above the windows & hang the rail from that : it looks fine as painted same colour as walls

Maybe have a look at ‘wave’ curtains as they can be top mounted into your ceilings instead. We’ve got the wooden baton above scenario, not ideal but was like that when we moved in and it works

There are products that go into steel. I used these:

www.screwfix.com/p/easydrive-carbon-steel-self-drilling-screws-5-5-x-32mm-100-pack/93904?tc=BB4&ds_kid=92700048793290424&ds_rl=1249413&gclid=Cj0KCQiAybaRBhDtARIsAIEG3kkMau9wQrG_zRaGv6evrUils-kaJ_0qqYwgzJFwSQjD4MRvNvrhc0MaAhT9EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

To fix a piece of timber to the steel, and then I hang anything I need from the timber. That said there are bound to be things you can do- get an HSS pilot bit and pilot the screws for the curtain rail brackets if you don’t want to fix timber in the first instance.

Also it depends what kind of steel? I or H beam? Or box steel for the doors to mount off? (Box steels much easier)

@DespairingHomeowner

This is an issue in my road - not steels but insanely hard walls

What previous owners of my house did is nail a piece of timber above the windows & hang the rail from that : it looks fine as painted same colour as walls

Same here. I really didn’t want to go down that route, but it was impossible to fix a curtain rail up. I thought it would be hideous, but you actually don’t notice it when the curtains are open or closed.

I’ve never seen bifolds with curtains – is there a particular reason why you want curtains on them?

Just feels a bit weird at night, sitting with this big black wall. And for warmth I guess.

Blinds?
www.blinds-2go.co.uk/bifold-door-blinds?gclid=Cj0KCQiAybaRBhDtARIsAIEG3kmzwFnazcujMvctWAoZQYZbuQ76_5pA4JOYJR2caxpaW-no0fxL-FYaAluWEALw_wcB