How To Make a Giant Curtain Rod For Under $20

Well, I don’t know about you, but I have definitely found that window treatments of all variations seem extremely overpriced! It hardly matters what color and style you pick, it is going to be expensive. Having just moved into a new house, we have lots of windows that need love and attention. I can only go as quickly as our budget allows, so the further I can stretch each dollar, the sooner I will have all the windows covered!

Not wanting to sacrifice on quality, but wanting to have awesome wall to wall, ceiling to floor, room darkening curtains, I set out to find a solution. Here is what our room looked like before. Notice there are cheap blinds, and some variation of curtain do-dad above the windows. These

Now, my curtains themselves I bought on sale online at Kohls with a good sale and a good coupon for sure. For a total of 10 panels (it is a really big room, about 23 feet across I think), the curtains themselves cost around $200. I’m sure there are plenty of other posts and pinterest links around which could tell you how to make the curtains and save money on them as well. However, with limited time and a baby on the way, that project wasn’t going to happen.

I love how my curtains turned out. They also help a lot with regulating the temperature in the room also. We didn’t test it scientifically, but we are pretty sure they saved us money on our heating bill this past winter.

Time for the details. The following are the supplies I used for making and hanging the curtain rod, and approximate prices. I’m sorry I don’t have more pictures of the process, I hadn’t intended to post this and don’t have many.

Supplies:

Electrical Conduit – about $2 each

These come in lengths of 10 feet at my hardware store, so I needed 3 of these.

Spray Paint – about $5

I used a Rustoleum spray paint that works on metal

Epoxy

For gluing the dowel connectors. You don’t need this if your rod is less than 10 feet long.

Wooden Dowel(s) – about $1 each

For connecting the conduit from the inside – test at the hardware store to make sure you find ones that fit tightly INSIDE your conduit pieces. I used two that were about 2 feet long each.

The Cheapest Curtain rod you can find

I used one I had on hand to steal wall brackets and finials from. I priced these at the hardware store, and it was MUCH cheaper to just buy a complete curtain rod from the clearance section if you can find one.

My plundered finial. Pardon the cobwebs.

Before Painting

You can barely see the connection!

Wall bracket

Once you have the materials, the assembly isn’t too hard. Although, I admit that I had some help. My husband mounted all the wall brackets for me, and my dad finished the project off by connecting the rods with the dowels and spray painting it for me. I finished it off by hanging the curtains and adding the finials.

Compare the Before and After!

Cut the conduit to length. I cut three equal pieces that totaled about a half foot less than the length of my room. By ‘I’, I should say, the nice guy at the hardware store cut them with a hacksaw for me. This left enough room for the finials, but did cut it a bit close.
Connect the conduit with the dowel rods and epoxy. This is mostly trial and error – if the dowel rods fit very tightly, you may not need the epoxy.
Paint the rod (and possibly the finials and brackets if they don’t match).
Mount the wall brackets.
Hang the curtains and arrange as you like.
Add the finials. Mine were a bit smaller than the opening of the conduit, so I added some cardboard and used hot glue to get them on.
ADMIRE!

I confess, although this process doesn’t need to take very long, it took months around here. We had the curtain mounted using pre-made conduit connectors (they connect on the outside and don’t look nearly as nice) and unpainted for a long time. I have the excuse of having been pregnant and fully intend to use it. The curtain was functional, but not pretty. I am so happy it is done now! Enjoy the pictures of before and after. Let me know if you need more details on any of the steps.