How to get style and function from your curtains

How do you sleep at night? I’ll be more specific because I don’t mean that in the threatening way we hear on TV. What I mean is, do you like to wake up with the morning light gently streaming in your window or do you need to create a dark, velvety cave suitable for hibernation? Before I met my husband, I don’t think I had a preference considering I can sleep through just about anything (example: my oldest son spilled a glass of water all over the floor at 3:00 am and my husband helped him clean it up but I didn’t hear a thing- I slept right through it). Now, 10 years after marrying him, I have been trained to need the hibernation situation in order to fall asleep.

In my experience, window treatments are one of the first new things to be added or changed when moving into a new house- right along with new locks and toilet seats! After all, curtains and shades provide privacy and other practical things, like light and temperature control, but they are also decorative and add a lot (or a little) to the personality of a room. It was the first new item (or items) we added when moving to Cincinnati in August because, as I’ve established, we all need a nice dark room to sleep, kids included, AND we were highly motivated to stop using garbage bags attached to the windows with painters tape every night.

Matt, my husband, introduced me to the world of blackout shades and curtains and, at least back then, I was struck by how… unattractive they were. Very effective to be sure, but all of the pretty window treatments seem to be made to let the light in. I may be a heavy sleeper, a very heavy sleeper, but Matt is the opposite. Every thing wakes him up which means any light filtering curtain is totally off limits in a bedroom.

The idea probably occurred to me way too late, but I finally did a Google search for blackout curtain liners. They do exist! Matt was very skeptical that they would work but now we can both attest to the fact that they do indeed work every bit as well as the typical solid color, grommet top, blackout curtain. Blackout curtains and liners are also great for blocking out sound and creating insulation from the heat and cold- a very practical home purchase. There are liners available for every curtain situation. They are available in multiple sizes and for the various types of curtains on the market, such as grommet, tab top, back tab, curtain rings, etc. Major retailers like Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel make liners specifically for the curtains they manufacture. Amazon sells universal liners to fit curtains from any store- just be sure to throughly read the description for size, number of panels included and how they attach to the curtain and/or rod.

Adding liners to a light filtering curtain does require a little more work than just hanging them on the rod. For our bedroom, I chose these curtains from Target and ordered these liners from Amazon. While the curtains I chose are back tab curtains, I wanted extra length so I could hang the rod closer to the ceiling to create height in our bedroom, so I also ordered these curtain rings opting for the 2″ diameter in order to get the length I wanted. The liner did not change the look of the curtain because it is not a sheer material which would look different with a liner. I don’t think a liner will change the look of a curtain panel if the material is opaque but light filtering. The liner does add extra weight so do be sure that your rod is sturdy and can support the added weight and also, if you’re using curtain rings, use enough rings to keep the panels from sagging. If you have back tab curtains like we do, you should have enough support with one ring per tab. You can always add more rings as needed. I ironed each curtain panel then attached the liner to each back tab with the ring clips and hung them on the rod. My liner came with pins as well to attach the liner to the curtains but I thought the material of my panels was too delicate for pins and opted not to use them, but most liners will have that option.

Primary Bedroom Curtain Sources

Top Row, left to right

• Light Filtering Global Border Curtain Panel $33
• Light Filtering Embroidered Curtains- 2 Panels $40
• Opaque Fair Trade Print Curtains- 2 Panels $60

Bottom Row, left to right

• Room Darkening Velvet Curtains- 2 Panels $40
• Light Filtering Tassel Border Curtains- 2 Panels $43
• Belgian Flax Linen Curtain Panel $129
• Lustre Velvet Curtains- 2 Panels $345

Ten years after discovering that blackout curtains were a thing and not very cute… now there are many stylish options available. The ones I liked were, per usual, more expensive than I wanted, so using the liners and Target curtains got me the look I wanted for the price I wanted. However, I particularly like the options (and prices) available for kids. Just as I did for our bedroom, I found curtains for my boys at Target, but this time they were blackout curtains. I’m not a fan of grommets, so I chose back tabs again in order to use curtain rings as I did in our bedroom so that we could hang them closer to the ceiling. If the options from Target had been in available in a length longer than 84″ I would not have needed the rings but I was happy to have the rings as an option for added length.

Kids’ Bedroom Curtain Sources

Top row, left to right

• Blackout Tassel Curtain Panel $27 (we have these in our youngest son’s room)
• Rainbow Stripe Blackout Curtains (2 Panels) with Star Cut-outs $40
• Blackout Irregular Mini-Stripe Curtain Panel $27 (we have these in our oldest son’s room)

Bottom row, left to right

• Star Print Blackout Curtains (2 Panels) $47
• Blackout Tree Print Curtain Panel $29
• Blackout Rugby Stripe Curtain Panel $27
• Portable Blackout Curtain $26 (these are awesome for travel)

Some other tips I’ve gathered about curtains over the years:

• Hang your curtains high and wide to make the window appear bigger
• Match your paint to your curtains to keep the eye moving and create the illusion of a larger space
• Curtains will stretch a little (mine have stretched about 1″) so keep that in mind when deciding if you want your curtains to pool on the ground, barely brush the floor or hover just above it

Do you have any curtain hacks? Please share them in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

*This post contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase from links on our blog at no additional cost to you.