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adrian_turtleAfter more than 5 years in this apartment, I finally acquired some real curtains. It's not quite as bad as it seems. My windows weren't completely naked for all that time. Mostly, I used the vertical blinds the landlord provided. No sensible design engineer would use vertical blinds in front of a window that opens from the side--there is no way to move the blinds away from the open part of the window without pulling them off the track. Gentle breezes clatter the blinds, and moderate winds break them. Sometimes I clipped tablecloths, or flannel sheets, over the windows to provide insulation, or to compensate for some of the broken blinds.
I knew what kind of curtains I *wanted*. Opaque, preferably insulating. Blue, or a pattern with blue in it. With those big loops on top (called "tab tops"), that are easy to hang from any kind of curtain rod, and easy to slide to the side. Sometimes I even got around to shopping for them...but most inexpensive curtains seemed to be gauzy stuff, useless for keeping out heat or cold. I considered denim. I wasn't sure if covering a third of the vertical surface area in my living room in dark blue would be worse for my depression than being cold in winter. That and the cost was daunting enough that I just didn't get around to it. ($250-300 for something that might be a bad idea? No.)
Last week, I was on my way home from a job interview out in Natick, and I stopped at Store 19 to see what they had. Insulated curtains! Not blue, but for $30, I think I can settle for green. A more serious problem is that I don't know how to hang some of the curtains. One set has the big loops I can slide onto the curtain rod, right over the fiddly bits of hardware that are already there. The tabs are so big, the old hardware doesn't seem to get in the way at all.
The other packages of curtains were marked "pole tops." Searching online, I could find advice about making curtains, installing curtain rods, and finding fancy curtain-hanging hardware. I couldn't find anything about identifying the bits of the curtains one has, or matching them with the bits of curtain-hanging hardware one has. I am about to describe this in ridiculous detail, because this is all so new to me, and I have no idea what's important. At the very top, there's a 1.25" channel made by folding over the twill cloth of the curtain itself. Just under that, there is a 3" channel made by sewing a strip of muslin across the back of the curtain.
The curtain rod that came with the apartment is a 1" piece of metal tubing, flaring a bit larger where it attaches to mounting brackets on the wall. It's not a round tube, the cross-section is shaped like a C. There are cords in the tube, pulling a couple of metal sliders that dip down about half an inch under the rod, and are about 4" long. I think those are meant to attack to the center part of a curtain, so you can close it with a pulley at the side. There are also lots of little plastic thingees in the curtain rod...I have no idea what they're supposed to do. I think each one has a sort of button holding it inside the C, while the rest of it hangs out, ending in a square opening. It doesn't hang out very far, as the whole thingee is only an inch long.
If I leave all the hardware in place, I can fit the curtain rod in the 3" pocket of the curtain, but it doesn't slide easily. Does any of this hardware seem like the sort of thing that can be removed in a reasonably non-destructive way?
I knew what kind of curtains I *wanted*. Opaque, preferably insulating. Blue, or a pattern with blue in it. With those big loops on top (called "tab tops"), that are easy to hang from any kind of curtain rod, and easy to slide to the side. Sometimes I even got around to shopping for them...but most inexpensive curtains seemed to be gauzy stuff, useless for keeping out heat or cold. I considered denim. I wasn't sure if covering a third of the vertical surface area in my living room in dark blue would be worse for my depression than being cold in winter. That and the cost was daunting enough that I just didn't get around to it. ($250-300 for something that might be a bad idea? No.)
Last week, I was on my way home from a job interview out in Natick, and I stopped at Store 19 to see what they had. Insulated curtains! Not blue, but for $30, I think I can settle for green. A more serious problem is that I don't know how to hang some of the curtains. One set has the big loops I can slide onto the curtain rod, right over the fiddly bits of hardware that are already there. The tabs are so big, the old hardware doesn't seem to get in the way at all.
The other packages of curtains were marked "pole tops." Searching online, I could find advice about making curtains, installing curtain rods, and finding fancy curtain-hanging hardware. I couldn't find anything about identifying the bits of the curtains one has, or matching them with the bits of curtain-hanging hardware one has. I am about to describe this in ridiculous detail, because this is all so new to me, and I have no idea what's important. At the very top, there's a 1.25" channel made by folding over the twill cloth of the curtain itself. Just under that, there is a 3" channel made by sewing a strip of muslin across the back of the curtain.
The curtain rod that came with the apartment is a 1" piece of metal tubing, flaring a bit larger where it attaches to mounting brackets on the wall. It's not a round tube, the cross-section is shaped like a C. There are cords in the tube, pulling a couple of metal sliders that dip down about half an inch under the rod, and are about 4" long. I think those are meant to attack to the center part of a curtain, so you can close it with a pulley at the side. There are also lots of little plastic thingees in the curtain rod...I have no idea what they're supposed to do. I think each one has a sort of button holding it inside the C, while the rest of it hangs out, ending in a square opening. It doesn't hang out very far, as the whole thingee is only an inch long.
If I leave all the hardware in place, I can fit the curtain rod in the 3" pocket of the curtain, but it doesn't slide easily. Does any of this hardware seem like the sort of thing that can be removed in a reasonably non-destructive way?
