Cheap period curtains

[JoceAndChris]

I just think curtains could eliminate so much cold here. But the curtains I'd want would cost me around £30,000 for the whole house.

Any suggestions for places to buy ready mades?

In Egypt fabric was as little as 50p a metre. Considering I need around 30 metres for the drawing room, and 60 metres for the tent room, it's sort of tempting to look beyond the UK. Anyone got any experience of buying wholesale, or importing fabric from overseas?

 

[LadyArowana]

Yes, but it wouldn't help would it!!! :lol:

 

[Tom]

Any suggestions for places to buy ready mades?

Joce, it's a while since I've bought fabric to make my own things so I may be out of touch with pricing but wouldn't it be cheaper to make your own?

 

[JoceAndChris]

It all depends what fabric and style I go for - but, interestingly, some ready made curtains in Dunelm at present that would sort of do for the very chilly porch are £229.00. If I were to buy an equivalent fabric there, and lining, it would cost around £250 to make them up myself.

My recent quote to have them made for this porch was £1500 - that was for one pair of interlined curtains in lightweight silk with swags and tails above with simple fringe detail. I recall that silk was £24 per metre.

I think the cheapest way is probably second hand, the second cheapest ready mades and the third cheapest flying to a poor country, getting the fabric and having them made up plus a holiday into the bargain.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I should point out that I'd really, really like to support local craftspeople and business and even British cloth ( just think of tweed curtains!) but at the same time I'm freezing cold and need a quick fix.

 

[Moo]

I'm freezing cold and need a quick fix.

In that case, why not hang up some large blankets (or even thick bedcovers)? They'd do the job pro tem and then, when you'd sourced your ideal curtains, you could donate them to charity (or use them to keep your hens warm in winter).

 

[another_richard]

An old duvet sandwiched between two old bedsheets will do the trick for curtains.

Cost = £0.

 

[Tom]

I don't think you need to justify why you buy what. If you need curtains, you need curtains

Not a lot of point in making your own if there's such a small difference between that and ready made. I really am out of touch!!

If you go for ready made or second hand, you could unpick the edge and insert enough lightweight fleece fabric to pad them, then just sew the edge back up. That will add warmth and bulk without the weight

 

[Pford75]

Try the curtain exchange in Bury St Edmunds. quality second hand curtains for reasonable prices...they will even do alterations

 

[JoceAndChris]

What a brilliant idea the curtain exchange is. I'd like a morning there very much.

Blankets, or duvets, are also excellent suggestions particularly for rooms you're happy just to shut off. ( though I'd always need to get behind the blanket for the shutters here) The window I have in mind for immediate attention though - in fact the outer wall of the glazed porch - needs curtains that can be pulled away from the doors, each one measuring 2m50 in length and 1.30 in width - so it would need to be lots of sections of blankets stitched together!

If anyone spots any other big warehouse type places selling ready made curtains let me know. There are lots online but it's impossible to judge the colours.

 

[Moo]

Curtains can be improvised very easily these days by hanging them with metal clips that just grip the top of the fabric/blanket/etc and are slotted on to the curtain pole, so that you can draw the 'curtains' just like proper ones.
I know a tithe barn in south Norfolk that uses this system to curtain off an immensely tall space with old army blankets (three deep, I think).
2.5m is, I'd guess, about the length of standard blankets, sheets and bedspreads so you'd have no problem with that doorway.

ps I'm sure you can get the clip things from Dunelm.

 

[JoceAndChris]

There must be large blankets and sheets but mine are all that bit too short - not that I have any old ones as I'm always taking things like that to the charity shops. Anyway such things can be found cheaply - or even lengths of cloth - it's the several hundred or thousand pound bills for curtains that can't be met this winter.

That's a great idea about the poles and the clips - I haven't seen those.

 

[Feltwell]

But the curtains I'd want would cost me around £30,000 for the whole house.

Aha. Joce, I do believe I've discovered the root cause of that outrageous sum. It's the words "I'd want". :wink:

You've heard of the phrase about someone having "champagne tastes but beer money" - why do I suspect that in curtaining terms, the champagne you have in mind is something akin to Perrier Jouet's Belle Epoque?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ost-expensive-bottle-of-champagne-423405.html

I have beer tastes - preferably a nice real ale. Shame I've only got cheap lager money

You'll have to persuade Nigel to give you lessons on curtain making, he seems to be a dab hand. I am absolutely hopeless at anything like that, to the eternal disgust of my very accomplished seamstress mother - who made our curtains, my wife's wedding dress, a party dress for may daughter, soft toys and numerous other things. I'd quite like to learn but honestly, for someone who does lots of other craft-type activities and who is generally fairly good at them, when it comes to anything involving fabric I am utterly, utterly useless!

 

[rog and gina]

We've just had the same problem, we searched all over but couldn't find anything thick enough. So I had a brainwave... I bought two patchwork quilts from Dunelm, cut them down the middle and did a very simple hem at the top to push the pole through!
Obviously our windows are tiny compared to how big yours sound, but its definately done the trick in our house.
Hope this helps, Gina

 

[JoceAndChris]

Gina - that sounds like an ingenious idea! Pics? I need to have a good look at what they've got there, I bet they'll have a huge sale in January as well.

And the windows aren't exceptionally large here it's just that I like to floor to ceiling for warmth, and there are tricky recesses:

For which I'd like something like this at Sezincote

http://www.google.co.uk/m/search?site=images&source=mog&hl=en&gl=uk&client=safari&q=sezincote#i=8

And then there's this whole freezing arrangement

Feltwell- Alas, your comments about champagne are all too true!

It's also just a timing thing though - we didn't sell our London flat so came here with nothing more than debt. We didn't even have much furniture as we rented out our flat furnished. Then, suddenly, you need absolutely everything and the house needs work too.

I hope that by age 50 I can have my 5 million pound curtains and carpets? And a deer park, and a shell grotto in the garden, and a Gothick cottage in the wood for my mum and dad, and a lake and an Egyptian hen house. Oh, and I hope the Duchess of Rutland gives me all her old stuff.

Nigel's curtains are amazing but he'd be the first to say they aren't exactly money- saving. I used to make my own, but for some reason they got successively wonkier and wonkier, I think my machine is cursed.

 

[Moo]

I think my machine is cursed.

Joce - the very best curtains are hand-stitched, but you do need a very big table in order to lay them out flat while you're doing it.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

I agree with the blanket/ quilted bedspread/ curtain exchange ideas. But surely you can find a local lady ( or fella) who would make these up for you.... put an ad in the post office,.
I stumbled across somebody just down the road by looking in our local newsletter, she is brilliant and charges very silly money for her skills---- £ 25 to make a pair of curtains from fabric that I gave her.

 

[JoceAndChris]

That's a very cheap price Joss! I could do with finding someone really skilled - I found a local lady who said she'd make matching swags and tails to the hallway curtains, she quoted £250 - but then I got scared of using her when she told me she'd never made them to be attached to a pole rather than a pelmet, and why didn't I consider a pelmet instead?

Maybe the Bury shop will be more confidence inspiring.

I'm currently embarked on making a simple curtain to hang in front of the kitchen door to outside - doing it all by hand as my machine's broken. Hand stitching the two widths together has not gone well at all, and the whole thing is made much harder as Macavity just wants to sit on it. I certainly wouldn't let myself loose on complex swags and tails or goblet pleats.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

The only other way, Joce, is to have one set at a time made properly whilst making do with quick fixes in the meantime. If you could organise your decorative budget on a rolling basis, then you could probably achieve what you want in a year or two....I should imagine that the most expensive will be the three bay window, that's quite a lot of fabric / track/pole and fitting time there.

Failing that take a trip to France and trawl the markets---------------- :roll:

 

[JoceAndChris]

They're good ideas Joss. Chris has got a lovely pay rise so hopefully I can increase my one room per year record! But yes, quick fixes for this winter.

The main drawing room will be expensive, and also the three windowed bay in the music room extension - I can't solve how those ones will work as the shutters aren't in recesses.

Then there are the three windows of the breakfast room bay ( when the other two are opened up) and of course the tent room.