Make Your Own Bay Window Treatment

I've wanted to hang some curtains in our dining room- not really for any functional reason but because I think they look pretty and soften the room a bit. Since we have amazing blinds that came with the place, we really don't need them for any other purpose (key point, as this DIY window treatment is totally not functional :)

I started doing some research on curtain rods for the bay window in our dining room. Here is what it looked like before:

Bay Window treatments are expensive! The cheapest I could find was $70 including shipping. Then to add the curtains on top of that- no thanks! An example of one of the rods I found:

See how the windows above have 2 curtains on the corners? I didn't really want to block that much of the window so we only hung one curtain. Since we don't want to "use" the curtains my personal prefrence made our job a whole lot easier!

I figured we could probably noodle out a way to make our own. Nothing a little spray paint can't handle!

I bought some super glossy black spray paint, a few dowels from home depot, standard (read: cheap) curtain brackets (6), and two wood finials.

I had Peter cut the dowels to our desired length, and we glued the finials to the ends. Next came the spray paint! I did a few coats on everything - including a re-coat after the dowels needed a little light sanding in between coats.

My part was done for now. I eagerly awaited Peter coming home from work so he could mount my brackets! Once he did that, I hung the dowels on their brackets and measured the curtains to length. We bought the standard cheap white curtains from Ikea that only set us back a few bucks. They even include hem tape- so this is a no sew project!

Voila! Curtains hemmed and ready to be hung! We used the sleeve instead of the big loops on the curtains - I just liked that look. It was a super tight fit, but they don't need to move, remember?! I knew you would...

We were going to glue the corners together (Peter had mitered the corners in anticipation). Then...when we went to hang them, we realized we wouldn't be able to slide the curtains on if they were glued! haha. Live and learn. Since the brackets have a screw that allows you to tighten them and firmly hold the dowel in place, we had no need for gluing anyways! The curtain covers our makeshift corners anyway. No one will ever know. Shhh...

Here is the final product...

I am thrilled with how it came out. Even more thrilled with the price tag. Heres an approximate price breakdown:

Spray Paint: $3
Wood finials: $4 set of 2
Dowels: $4
Brackets: $6
Curtains: $13 per pair.  $26 total

Total: $43!

That's cheaper than the rod itself! Note: if you did want the curtains to be functional you could glue corners together and add those curtain clips to the rods...

So happy with the result and I am so glad I didn't buy a new curtain rod :)