Pull yourself together, they’re just curtains.

In which I dive, possibly too deeply, into the world of drapery.

When I moved into my condo 11 years ago (I can't believe it’s been that long!), there were ugly, half-detached track rods across the windows, which I promptly removed.

Let me paint the picture: I have a West-facing unit (never the sunrise, but always the sunset, which I’m fine with), with one of those L-shaped living/dining rooms. As I’m on the top floor, I have extra-high structural ceilings (121.5" to be precise), but with dropped-ceiling tiles that bring it down to 93" (and no, I can’t remove the dropped ceilings as they cover lots of wiring and piping coming from the roof — that’s the drawback to ‘penthouse living’), which means I can’t really hang things heavier than paper from the ceiling unless I want to put a hole in a tile and hang an extra long pole/hook contraption from the concrete 28.5" farther up.

The windows along the wall go from the dropped ceiling to a windowsill a third of the way up the wall, and they span more than half of the width of wall. They’re broken into six separate panes, with three larger, almost square, panes above three smaller, rectangular, panes (the centre of which opens). All told (including framing), it’s over 472ft of light coming in — and that’s DIRECT sunlight from about 1pm until sundown, as there are no significant obstructions to the horizon for almost 5.5 kilometers (that’s over 3.3 miles*).

For the first summer I had no curtains at all — not a privacy issue, as I’m on the 20th floor and no one’s close enough to me to make a difference, and I loved the light. But it did mean my place got hot. I mean HOT. The thermometer was telling me some days that it was close to 40 degrees in my place when I got home from work around 6ish (which means mid-day it was over 40).

I got some UV window film for the top panes and it brought the temperature down by maybe 3 degrees on average. I attached tension rods to the three top panel frames to hang light sheer fabric, which brought it down a bit more. I had to buy a new air conditioner before the end of that first summer though, just to survive — but I didn’t like running it while I was at work as I was away for at least 10 hours and I’ve always been nervous to leave large appliances running unattended, so the display would still tell me it was 33 degrees or so when I would get home.

So I had no choice, I had to put up proper curtains.

I’m a handy person, so I try to do these things myself — building furniture, setting up my stereo, plumbing, you name it. But I’ve always had trouble trusting myself to properly anchor things to the wall, especially since I moved in here. When I lived in the co-op, I anchored plenty of shelves and pictures with no problem, but for some reason I’m more hesitant here. All of my standing shelves have shims under the front feet to lean them back against the wall. And with the added strangeness of having to anchor onto the exterior wall — brick — I was nervous to do it correctly. Finally, a friend offered to help and, between us, we put up a proper rod, less than 1.5" from the ceiling. And it’s made an even bigger difference! I put up proper curtains (two black panels, two grey panels, and a lovely sage-colour in the middle) and thought phew, now I can keep it dark in here and cool it off!

And then the Pandemic happened.

Suddenly, no longer in air-conditioned splendour that was working in the office, and working from home all day, every day, at the same time as a freak heat wave, I discovered that:

• I had to replace my air conditioner — even with my old one running, the thermometer was reading over 40 some days
• I had to replace my curtains — where I’m situated, the window is behind me, and when I’m on a video call with my colleagues, with the black curtains behind me closed it still looks like the curtains are wide open

The air conditioner was easy (well, I say easy, but that’s a whole other story, maybe I’ll post about that some time). The curtains — well, not as easy. I wanted proper blackout curtains, at least for the outer edges of the windows where it would be behind me as I work, but they’re not cheap. I did, however, fortuitously happen upon EXACTLY what I wanted in the As Is department at my local Ikea for half price, huzzah! Thing is, though, they’re proper curtains — not like my current panels, which have massive grommets that you simply thread the hanging rod through. I mean, they do have that option, but they also have an integrated pleating tape, which means I COULD hang them by simply slipping the rod through, but it would be so much nicer to properly hang them with hooks…

Which brings us to today. I have rings, I have ring hooks, I have clips — and I have a bewildering variety of drapery hooks. But do you think I can find a single source online that will explain the differences between the different hooks and how they should be used? Or even what they’re called? NO.

So, in a fit of pique, I’ve decided to do the research and post it here. You’re welcome.

Oh, and something I never knew before, apparently ‘drapes’ and ‘curtains’ aren’t simply interchangeable terms — drapes are lined and heavy, while curtains are unlined and lighter. Who knew?

The top: how it hangs

You wouldn’t think it would make a difference, but it really does.

The header & pleating

These first options mean that, any time you want to take the curtain off the rod, you must take the whole shebang down.

• Grommet top — what I have now, essentially holes punched in the fabric with grommets around them, and the rod threads through them. The fabric will have a deep ‘serpentine’ effect at the top. Simple.
• Rod pocket — a sewn pocket the full width of the top of the panel, again you thread the rod through it. Looks a little more professional, but if you have supports for the rod that will fall mid-curtain panel, it’ll be really obvious where it falls. Hides the rod completely. Naturally ‘crumples’ along the rod.
• Ripplefold aka Hidden tabs or Retro Header — similar to a rod pocket, instead of a closed pocket the full width of the fabric, there are tabs at intervals along the back of the fabric that you can thread the rod through. Same problem of having to remove the rod to remove the curtain, but you don’t get that obvious bump from the rod support, and it allows for a smooth ‘wave’ effect at the top. Also hides the rod completely.
• Tab top (closed style) — like the ripplefold, the rod is threaded through the tabs. Can look nice if you do a separate treatment on the tabs, like tying around them with a contrasting fabric.
  
  

The rest of these options allow you to leave the rod up, and either use tabs that tie around the rod, rings on the rod that stay on, S-hooks that hang over the rod and hook to the fabric header tape, or a track system (I’m going to ignore the track system for this discussion though, as it works out to the same thing). The degree to which these either show or hide the rod depends on the placement of the hooks.

• Ring clips — clips hang beneath the rings on the rod, and then you can clip them onto the top of the fabric. By doing this, you don’t need proper curtains, any piece of fabric will do. But they don’t hold as much weight, and they don’t look as nice. I’ve used these for the sheers in each window, and that’s fine for that purpose.
• Tab top (tie style) — the fabric itself has pairs of tabs extending from the top, that you then tie around the rod. Can be awkward, and harder to remove than clips or hooks, but also don’t require more hardware than the rod itself.
• Plain top aka Casual or ‘Shabby Chic’ — hooks hanging from the rod attached to the top or back side of the fabric. These do not need to be proper drapery hooks, any kind of hook will do — even a paper clip, if it’s strong enough and the fabric is light enough.
  
  

And now, the fancy pleats — these can be pre-sewn in, but if they’re not, to make them will require the use of proper drapery hooks. Just remember that adding pleats reduces the width of the panel, so the more pleats you add, the narrower the panel, and the more panels you’ll need for your rod! The list is enormous, but here are the basics:

• Relaxed pleat — the pleated part comes to the front, like almost all pleats, and is wide, sort of like a wave.
• Box pleat — similar in style to the relaxed pleat but sharper, the pleated part is folded and sits flat against the fabric.
• Pencil pleat — fine, even pleats spanning the width of the fabric top.
• Pinch pleat aka French pleat — the standard one we’re all familiar with, the pleat pinches in near the bottom of the header and fans back out going both up and down from the pinch. Usually a three-fingered pleat, it can also be a single pleat or a two-, four-, or even five-fingered pinch pleat, depending on the hook used.
• Top tack pleat aka Tailored pleat — just like a regular pinch pleat, except the pleat is tightest at the very top.
• Rear pleat, aka Tuxedo pleat or Inverted pleat — so you want the pleat without seeing the pleat? This is the one for you. Looks flat at the front, with the pleat in back. Very chic.
  
  

And if you want to go a little fancier:

• Euro pleat — gatherings of three pencil pleats, sort of similar to pinch pleats but neither pinched nor fanning out towards the top.
• Single pleat — spaced out, single pencil pleats.
• Knife pleat — similar to a pinch pleat but the pinch continues up to the top, not fanning out upwards.
• Cartridge pleat — the curtain looks smooth other than stiff, tube-shaped pleats that stick out the front.
• Goblet pleat — just like it sounds, it’s similar to the cartridge pleat except the bottom of the tube shape is pinched in with a triple pleat, so it looks like the top is wrapped around goblets.
• Butterfly pleat — like a goblet pleat with the centre pleat removed, so a sort of wide pinch I guess? Hard to describe. I guess if it was wrapped around a funnel instead of a goblet?
• Windsor pleat — very like a goblet pleat but not quite as sharp, with the ‘goblet’ part appearing softer.
  
  

You can turn any piece of fabric into ‘proper’ drapery relatively easily by using drapery header tape (aka pleating tape or shirring tape), which is sewn or ironed onto the top back, and has threads you can pull to achieve the desired pleat style, slots to slip different hook styles through, hidden tabs, or grommet holes already in it (you’d then have to cut the holes in your fabric to match and then attach grommets of course). Besides the pleats mentioned above, the tape threads also allow for fancier treatments like simple or diamond-loop smocking (think old baby dresses).

The hooks

This is how I fell down this rabbit hole in the first place! I have a mess of mismatched hooks and no good way of knowing how each is meant to be used, so I had to look into it…

If your panel already has header tape attached, it will have slots into which you slip the ends of the hooks. These are the standard ones.

• Single prong slip-in hooks — just slide the end into the slot. Doesn’t create a pleat.
• 2-prong slip-in hooks — the two prongs slip around the sides of an already sewn-in pleat. This is the one we’re all familiar with seeing when we were growing up, with a hook in the middle and a long wire on either side, often with a loop at the top of each – the loop, I believe, is so you can sew it into place. You know, in case you had oodles of time. You can also slip the ends into side-by-side slots for a simple hook, or into slots farther spaced apart to make a pencil pleat — the farther apart the slots, the deeper the pleat.
• 3-prong slip-in pinch pleat hooks — as with the 2 prong, can make a deep double pleat. Despite the name, I think these are more pencil pleats than pinch pleats.
• 4-prong slip-in pinch pleat hooks — similarly, makes a deep triple pleat. Again, I think these will give you pencil pleats (a euro pleat), not pinch pleats.
  
  

Some other hooks:

• Gathering hook aka Butterfly hook — these are small and inserted high up, and are grouped closely together, like only two or three inches apart. Used with pencil pleat tape, often with sheers.
• Sew-on simple hook — this is a very simple hook, just a bent wire with a loop at one end to sew onto the fabric. These are preferable if you want them to REALLY stay on there.
• Nylon curtain G-hooks — spiral-shaped, kind of looks like an ear. I don’t think I’d trust these to hold extra heavy drapery, but probably easy for lighter fabrics like sheers.
• Adjustable curtain hooks — these are plastic single-prong slip in hooks, but the hook part is adjustable in height.
• Pin s-hooks — just like it sounds, a single hook with a sharp end to pin directly into the fabric, or into the slip-in slots on the header tape.
  
  

I think, unless you can insert the hook midway up the header, the length of the full hook should be more than half the depth of the fabric header, otherwise the fabric won’t sit right. They come with the actual hook part at varying distances from the bottom of the hook: the lower down, the higher the drapery will sit. So if you want to hide your rings and/or rod, choose one with a hook lower down.

Some of the pleat hooks I see have a clamp that swings up from the bottom, that tightens the pleat to be extra smart. I’d never seen that before, so now I wish I had some like that. The gathered pleats still look nice without the clamp, but a little more loose and casual.

The bottom: how it ends

The ‘drop’ is the length from the rod to the bottom edge. If it’s to be floor-length (as opposed to café curtains for example), you don’t want it to sit too high, or it’ll look like your wall is wearing floods.

• Touching aka Floor — just barely grazing the floor, maybe a half inch up, down to actually just kissing the floor.
• Breaking — very slightly ‘sitting’ on the floor.
• Sweeping aka Trouser — most definitely sitting on the floor, but not so much you might trip over it.
• Puddling — for that fairy-tale look, and collecting the maximum amount of dust.
  
  

The sides: how it gathers

You can gather curtains in all kinds of ways, I’ve even been known to just tie a big damned knot in finer ones. Generally people tend to use hold back hooks or knobs attached to the wall beside the outside edges of the drapes, or fabric tiebacks that wrap around the panel and button together or, themselves, hook to a holdback on the wall or windowframe. These can be as simple or as fancy as you like.

You can also attach a baton aka fling rod to the last hook on a drapery panel to better slide it back and forth.

So… that’s what I found. Maybe when I have more time I’ll sketch up what these all look like and add them to the post.

I’ll update you guys on my drapery progress!

---

* Metric AND Imperial? What gives?

Well, I’m Canadian and of a certain age, so I think of small distances in feet and inches but larger distances in kilometers.

We started switching from Imperial to Metric when I was quite young, but it took a while for the shift to happen so I think in a mixture of both. When I weigh myself I think in lbs (I’ve purposely switched my scale to kg recently so I don’t have an immediate realization of what it’s telling me), and my height I think of in feet and inches, same for the measurements of my rooms and my furniture, but I have always thought of temperature in Celsius and highway distances in kilometers. Well, more in hours really, but that’s another thing altogether.

I also design in inches — North America still works in Letter/Legal/Tabloid sizes, all based around inch measurements, while most other countries in the world work in ISO 216 standard. If we eventually switch over to A4 I’ll not fuss, but it’ll be a steep learning curve for sure. I also prefer to measure in imperial when baking.