Curtains .... and cats?

[OreganoandFeta]

I have two beautiful boy cats (tax attached) who sleep in the living room. They are typical 2 year olds, full of beans and love zooming around in the garden then coming back inside for a comfy nap. I would really like to get floor length curtains for the main front-facing bay window in the living room. This is one of the boys' many viewing perches so they would need to jump up behind the curtains to get onto the window sill. I know window sill length curtains would be more sensible, but floor length is so much prettier. Would it be bonkers to buy full length?

Do you have curtains there currently?
I don't think it'll be a problem for them to get behind but you will need a lint roller to remove all the fur that gets stuck to the preferred entry point 😂
There's also the chance that if you buy blackout curtains you may end up with them looking like they have a star pattern as tiny claws make lots and lots of pinpoint holes on the fabric that allow the light to shine through, got to love them 😸

I have 3/4 length curtains in both my living room and my bedroom. I just make sure there's a cat width gap in the middle for them. Though on the few occasions I've closed them completely, they have managed to sneak up anyway (I think the 3/4 rather than full length helps them there).

My (now old) cat has no problem navigating his way behind floor length curtains and jumping up onto the windowsill. He either pushes his way through the middle, making them part slightly or approaches from one side. He's been navigating them since he was 1.

I agree they’ll navigate them, but you might have issues with them climbing to the top.

Beautiful boys.

What I normally do with anything potentially cat-adjacent is buy a very cheap version first, put it up and see what happens. If it works for the cat and she doesn't destroy it, then I get the real thing.

We have a bay window and floor length curtains, and a two year old (orange, so quite bonkers) boy cat - no issues at all. He goes in behind the curtains at the floor and hops up on the windowsill, although if it’s dark and the curtains are closed he’s less likely to bother at all really. Prior to him we had a girl cat, sadly now departed, who was also fine. Our boy is most interested in the cord for the blinds in the spare room!

My cat used to like to climb up my living room curtains between the curtain and the lining.....then he'd be stuck and a nightmare to get back out again.

Very much depends on the cat. Ours shows zero interest in floor length curtains despite them being just the right texture for them to be clawed to pieces. Even the dog is uninterested in them. However, I know others whose cats use curtains as a ladder, with predictable results. Guess you have to ask yourself how lucky you’re feeling…

Thank you everyone and sorry for the slow reply. This is exactly what I have done @ohime - got very cheap full length voile curtains and we'll see what happens before getting normal length lined curtains! Thank you @Ollybob for comment re black out - we're used to scratch marks in the old window sill length curtains but they're not black out so hadnt realised that would make the feline "decoration" more visible. Will avoid black out as its for living room. Thank you all!

A few of our floor length curtains were ruined by our boy having THE BEST TIME climbing them. Luckily they were only cheap ones so I wasn't too worried. Once I realised he had a taste for climbing I did two things, firstly I put a cat tree next to the full length curtain, with a view out of the window. Secondly I propped some of these in front of other curtains I didn't want him to climb for a few weeks. He was totally uninterested once they had the cat deterrents in front of them, didn't even try! And fortunately hasn't tried since!