Here’s a simple and inexpensive way to hang your curtains.

First, a little history as to how I ended up buying my curtain rods at a plumbing supply place.

After rebuilding the rotted window frames, there wasn’t much space inside the molding to hang blinds. There was no way I wanted to cover the window trim.  Having spent a fortune on it, I wanted to show it off.  So, it had to be inside the molding and the I only had about a 1/2 inch to work with. The other thing was that this is a long window, measuring 88″ across, so most of the non-custom rods were too short.

First choice was the Ikea window panels. Love them! But alas, they would have been too pricey for this project.

I did find some cute curtains at Dee and Dee for like six bucks. Now to hang them.

Rope? I like to use rope to hang shower curtains. I figured why not curtains? Well, because there is still no bar. The rope would just sag in the middle. Tension rod would have been another solution, but I didn’t try that.

When I saw an extra piece of copper pipe in the basement, the light bulb went off. I went to the plumbing supply place to see if they had narrow flanges I can use to hang it, much like a closet rod flange. They did not, so I said “Screw it. Let’s use that punchy hole thing that is used to secure pipes.” Then I saw the price of the copper and decided on electrical conduit instead.

And so here we are. For under twenty bucks, I have some curtains and the rod. It took about 10 minutes to install, including the time it took to cut the rod down to size. If you don’t like the way it looks, rest assured, it’s mostly covered by the fabric anyway. Plus, there’s always spray paint.