Looking to buy curtains? It is trickier than you think!

We're finally ready to share a post on curtains as we have finished putting up all the curtains and blinds in our flat! Here’s a photo of our curtains in the living area!

I’m actually impressed that we managed to put them up! We were worried about getting it wrong and super nervous about drilling holes! I’m so grateful that the lockdown restrictions eased and Dad was able to teach us. 

We weren’t in a rush to put them up because we were using these IKEA Schottis blinds. 

Why I loved them? They are so easy to use, quick to cut to size and there are clips provided so you can adjust the height of the blinds! The best part is that you don’t need to drill any holes. They have some adhesive tape at one end so you can stick it onto the window frame. 

I was so impressed by the black out version. It really does block out the light and I slept so well! I remember our first night at the flat and we didn’t have anything to cover up the two windows in the bedroom so I used a pillowcase and a cardboard box in the hope of blocking out the light. Yes, I was that desperate!  The cardboard box mostly worked for one window, but not the pillow case. I woke up at around 5am because of the bright sunlight streaming through the window!

The problem with having put up these handy blinds though was that we really procrastinated buying and putting up the curtains and roller blinds.

Types of curtains

When we eventually started looking at curtains, I was just overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choice and I was surprised by how much they cost!

If you are unfamiliar with the types of curtains like I was, Dunelm has a useful guide.

More useful links below:

Houzz: A beginner’s guide to buying the right curtains for your space

Ideal Home: What not to do when choosing curtains

Homefords: The pros and cons of lined & unlined curtains

Hubby and I decided that we wanted eyelet curtains because we liked the style and also it meant we wouldn’t need to deal with separate rings and hooks.  

Reminder: Eyelet curtains can only be used with curtain poles.

Our living room curtains are lined as we wanted to protect the curtains and the extra thickness to provide some insulation whilst still letting in some light! We were a little nervous about buying curtains online as I would have preferred to go to the shops but with COVID-19, we ended up just buying online. I was really happy with the texture and quality of both curtains!

We chose blackout curtains for the master bedroom and have noticed that it has reduced noise as we are near a road.

If you’re looking for curtain tie-backs, I bought these dark green ones from H&M and love them! I think they look a lot more expensive than the £12.99 price.

Here's a photo of the bedroom curtains!

Curtain Poles

Curtain pole choices were quite straight forward. We didn’t want to cut the poles to size so ended up getting these extendable poles from Dunelm when we were ordering the curtains! 

For the price, the quality is great and it came with the rings and finials. Turns out the decorative end of the curtain pole (e.g. a ball shape that you see in our photo) is called a finial. 

Tip: Don’t forget to check the product details to see if the pole length in the drop down option includes the finials! For the poles that we purchased, the length didn’t include the finials and it says to allow up to an additional 14cm to the pole length to accommodate the finials.

For some reason, we purchased a different curtain pole for the master bedroom. I really can’t remember why we didn’t just buy a longer one of the same style from Dunelm! 

We ended up going for an Argos one which does look nice but I would have preferred metal rings rather than the plastic ones they provided.  If I had to choose again, I would have picked the Dunelm one for the bedroom too.

Measuring for curtains

Until we started researching about curtains, I had no idea there was so much to think about!

Tip: Use a steel tape measure as it is more accurate - great tip from Dunelm!

Let me just say now that most of the websites I looked at recommend installing the pole before measuring for curtains but because we wanted to install them all in one day when my parents were visiting and were using ready made curtains where only one drop size was suitable, we just did it all in one go.

Most of our windows are floor to ceiling, which I love, but some are quite narrow (around 60cm wide). We struggled to find curtain poles that were the appropriate width and then struggled to find ready made eyelet curtains which fit our windows after we had calculated all the measurements!

I had seen on the John Lewis website that they do made to measure curtains and had another shock when I saw the price after I entered our measurements! It was back to searching for ready made curtains…

It was frustrating that our drop length was a few centimetres off what seems to be one of the standard sizes for ready made eyelet curtains and the next size up would be 40cm too long!

Luckily, we realised getting pencil pleat curtains would give us the extra few centimetres we needed as we hang them onto curtain rings whereas the eyelet curtains already have the rings at the top of the curtain.

Tip: Don’t forget that the drop length for eyelet and pencil pleat curtains are measured differently. For eyelet curtains, measure from the top of the pole. For pencil pleat curtains, measure from the small ring at the bottom of the curtain ring, also known as the eye.

John Lewis had a really helpful video on measuring curtains in their curtain buying guide. We ended up watching it multiple times to make sure we were doing it correctly!

I also thought the 'Which Curtain Size?' section of the Dunelm guide was useful! 

I’ll talk about installing the curtains in a separate post. Thanks for reading!

Jess