Or it should be curtains if they weren’t so expensive.

I ma decorating the main bedroom in out house, the curtains that were in there when we moved in are terrible and need replacing.

It is a bay window, will need to be pencil pleat as its on a track (fitting a pole kit to a curved bay is too much of a headache). Its a large bay (the total track length is 450cm).

Quotes online for even moderately basic stuff is coming in around £600 upwards – more like £1K for something a little nicer.

Does anyone have any suggestions for curtain places, or even better a curtain maker type person in Bristol.

Am i right in saying if the total track length is 450cm then each pencil pleat curtain should be 450cm too (to take into account the folds etc)?

*is hoping STW’s most appropriately named user will reply to this thread*

Am i right in saying if the total track length is 450cm then each pencil pleat curtain should be 450cm too (to take into account the folds etc)?

That’s right. Can’t help you with recommends though. Curtains are unfeasibly expensive.

Style point. Shouldn’t your thread title be Curtaintrackworld though?

It’s curtains, for me

…Pull yourself together, man!

Have a look at Dunelm Mill – ready made curtains cheap, but ok quality. And, yes, double the width for your curtain size.

Have you tried Dunelm?

Making your own is not that difficult, but decent quality cloth can be pretty expensive anway.

Do you really need curtains? How about roman blinds instead?
Or blinds with narrow curtains, which don’t actually close, just there for decorative purposes.

Anyway, if you are lucky, Bunnyhop will be along later, to give professional advice.

Look also for places like The Curtian Exchange, for 2nd hand curtains.

Depending on where you live bored housewives from well-to-do households will be regularly changing their expensive curtains on the advise of their pet interior designer, and places like this will be picking up the old curtains.

http://www.thecurtainexchange.co.uk/secondhand-curtains.html

http://www.changingcurtains.co.uk/agency.html

http://trackhouse.co.uk/second-hand/

http://www.thecurtaintrader.co.uk/acatalog/second-hand-curtains.html

I’ve nailed up an old wombles duvet cover and covered the rest in faded jazz mags, it’s certainly got people talking

This is the sort of thing I’d suggest, but much less fabric in the curtains, since they’d be staying “open”.

That ^ is foul. 😯

Try Top to Bottom in Staple Hill, who sell both made to measure and off-the peg. Their fabrics can be very cheap as they tend to sell roll ends – last month we paid just over £100 for material that could have cost £400 elsewhere. The staff are knowledgable & helpful.

Alternatively, try the charity shops on the Glos Road. They sometimes have piles of 2nd hand curtains out the back – you’d have to ask.

Massive pelmet and pouffe combo.

Try Calico http://www.calicoandco.com/
I’ve used them in Cardiff and you have a huge choice of materials & finish which will give you a good variation in price ranges.

In my single days whichever duvet cover wasn’t in use was pegged to a strip of washing line I had positioned above the window.
Therefore I had stylish curtains and a convenient place to dry a duvet cover.

The problem with the 2nd hand options is that the bay is pretty big (450cm) which really limits the options.

Ive had a look at Dunelms, the largest curtains they do is about 260cm which is half the width we’d need.

Roman Blinds look like an option.

#firstworldproblems

We bought ours in John Lewis. Expensive, but good

My folks ran a made to measure business. You get what you pay for and the difference between these and ready-mades is obvious when you see.

In my experience people don’t put much priority on the quality of decent curtains.

Buy two pairs from John Lewis to fill the width then, its what we did for the bay in our lounge (4m I think) as I couldn’t be bothered to sew them. Curtains are simple to make but faffing around with lots of heavy fabric is a pain. The fabric I was going to choose also came in ready made curtains from JL and my time/effort was worth the tiny bit extra they cost

For a grand (maybe a little more) you can fly to Turkey for a weekend and come back with some extremely high quality made to measure black out type curtains. Plus you get a weekend away!!!

For a grand (maybe a little more) you can fly to Turkey for a weekend and come back with some extremely high quality made to measure black out type curtains. Plus you get a weekend away!!!