Hanging Curtains in the Living Room

December 17, 2024

I woke this morning to the sound of thunder. How far off I wondered, as the thunder rolled over us.

We had quite the thunderstorm with pouring rain. Bruce checked to see if any water leaked in and we didn’t have any leaks!

Back on December 13, I ordered a curtain rod and large curtains from Amazon for the living room picture window. I had considered colorful curtains, such as red, burgundy, dark blue, sky blue, and even stone blue. I thought, “we’ll paint the room and beige linen curtains will go with any wall color I pick.”

The curtains are 100 inches wide each. This was to make it easy to cover the 123 inch wide picture window when the curtains are closed. They are also 93 inches long, as I wanted the curtains above the windows, close to the ceiling for a dramatic effect.

I started out by checking to see if the window frame was level. Fortunately, it was. I cut a piece of cardboard to make a template for installing the rod holders. I used my t-square mark a small rectangle to be cut from the square. I cut a rectangle out of the corner of the cardboard square.

I picked up one curtain, a rod holder, a pencil and the piece of cardboard. I climbed up the step-stool and held the cardboard against the window frame with the cut out piece placed against the window frame. I held the curtain up to get the length correct for hanging and folded the curtain to get the width I wanted. I marked through the two holes on the rod holder with the pencil onto the cardboard.

Bruce sauntered by and asked if I wanted help. I said I did. Bruce was impressed with the template and asked if it was OK for him to drill through the holes. The answer was yes, as I had expected to drill through the cardboard for the first rod holder.

Using the template, Bruce drilled holes for the two end rod holders. He screwed the two end rod holders to the wall.

I put together the rod while Bruce installed the rod holders. It was easy enough to do, I just had to follow the instructions.

To screw in the middle rod holder, Bruce measured to the center of the window. He put painters tape on the window frame and marked the center. He put more painters tape above the center. He used the level to get a plumb line from the center to The piece of tape above.

We put the rod into the end rod holders so Bruce could use the level to get the height right for the center rod holder. He marked the two holes in the painters tape and drilled.

He installed the final rod holder. While Bruce was doing that, I started putting the curtains onto the rod. I had decided to use the loops on the back of the curtains instead of curtain rings. My thought was, if the loops don’t work well, I can always buy curtain rings.

Bruce finished installing the curtain rod holder and put the second curtain on the rod while I finished with the first curtain.

We got the curtain rod over the center holder and the right holder. Luckily the rod was stable, so Bruce was able to move the step stool over to the left rod holder to put the curtain rod in.

Here pictures of the curtains installed.

After closing them for the first time, when I opened them, the curtain rod started sliding!

We needed to put in the set screws. The rod holder had a hole facing the rod at the curve. The set screw went into it to press against the rod to keep it from sliding.

Bruce was able to quickly install the set screws and the curtain rod no longer slides.

The curtains are wrinkled. I hope the wrinkles will fall out. Since I don’t have my iron, I can’t iron them yet.

I did consider using the steam feature on the dryer. I am just not sure it will work on something as big as these curtains. It might help some.

I am considering stenciling dragonflies on the curtains once I get the wrinkles out. I can just picture the champagne metallic paint dragonflies on the curtain. I will need to think about it more. Bruce suggested more colorful dragonflies, like what I did with the shower curtain.