Custom Curtain Rods Made out of Electrical Conduit PLUS Gorgeous Striped Drapes

This bank of windows lets in lots of natural light. It’s only a bad thing when someone comes to visit at say, mid-afternoon and sits on the loveseat right where the square patch of sunshine is in their eyes. There is no way to shut the blinds since THERE IS NO BLINDS on the top set of windows. It wasn’t until my friend sat on the loveseat and we were talking, she slowly kept leaning farther and farther to the side as we continued to talk. The conversation ends, I found myself giggling when I finally figured out what she was doing….she was trying to keep her face out of the direct sunlight…and then I felt silly that I didn’t realize it sooner and help her. Bless her heart, she was too polite to say anything, LOL!  That day, I knew I needed some curtains. But, first that would mean I would need a curtain rod!

So off to Home Depot to get some curtain rods electrical conduit. Yep, that’s right. I stopped at JoAnn’s on my way home from work and they were having a 60% off drapery hardware. I bought brackets for a few dollars a piece, even the special corner bracket piece for cheap! Wahoo! Now all I needed was the rod in the middle but, I couldn’t find one my size plus, I didn’t want to pay the price of the extra long rod. So, my husband and I headed to the home depot to buy some pipe. Electrical conduit is super cheap and light weight. Like $3 for 10 feet! The 10 feet did my whole window (although we bought two incase we measured wrong, so I guess we splurged at $6 but, ended up taking one back, LOL)

The next problem this tall window posed was that no curtain (off the shelf) was going to be long enough (even “order-in” curtains only go up to 108 inches and I needed over 120 inches). Custom curtains were definitely not in my budget so I came up with the next best thing…King Duvets! Think about it. The fabric on a king duvet is super wide without any seams (most fabrics come in 45-54 inches wide and a Duvet is over 100 plus inches wide). That means, my panels will be wide enough for this large window and long enough if you take the fabric from the top and wrap under to the back. Just a little unpicking of the side seams needed! The only sewing needed was to sew a straight line.

I’ve always wanted striped curtains. I had thought up a million ways to achieve the look: sew strips together (too time consuming), paint the stripe (each line would alternate opaque with see through, not what I was looking for) or buy King Duvet’s from West Elm on sale. Ding ding ding, we have a winner. The fabric was pre-striped (just like I wanted, and in the colors I wanted).

I cut the fabric at the length I needed and hemmed the edges.

One of the panels had the button holes from the duvet closure. So, I used invisible thread and sewed the button hole closed so it wouldn’t gap and show light through it.

I hung them up and decided I needed more curtain rod clips. My husband left the electrical conduit long until I decided if I wanted it to stick out just a bit from the end or if I wanted it cut flush with the end bracket. I have since decided on a flush cut and adorning the end with antique glass doorknobs. Love me some pretty doorknobs!

The drapes are AWESOME, AMAZING, EXACTLY WHAT I HAD BEEN DREAMING OF, MAKE ME GIDDY, LOVE ME SOME STRIPES, and help finish the room. I love that I can control the light and yet they look so stately adorning that tall bank of windows! Love!

Yeah, I finally have me my striped curtains! Now, if come to visit mid-afternoon and you have a block of sunshine in your face, I can kindly close the curtain!