Bay Window Curtain Rods

Once last week and once this week, the nice couple over at Young House Love, used a picture of my breakfast room to illustrate a point about curtains. I noticed in the comments section that several people seem to be stumped by their bay windows. So, I thought I would do a little post.

Here is a picture of the bay window, as it was when we moved in:

It had old white blinds and a swag that I despised. I decided to use wood blinds, but in a wood color that closely matches a lot of the built in cabinetry in my house. Incidentally, the reason John and Sherry at YHL have the pictures of my breakfast room, is because reading their blog is what inspired my window makeover. And my use of curtains, for the first time ever! I know John and Sherry prefer woven wood blinds, but I was concerned about the long term effects of the Texas sun on south facing windows. I have had good results with wood blinds from Blinds.com, so I stuck with them. I’m not saying that woven woods wouldn’t have stood up to the environment. I just didn’t want to experiment with such large windows. Here is a picture at the halfway point:

This would have been my done point before. This is where John and Sherry come to the rescue! When I attempted this I had been reading their blog for about six months, thanks to my friend Erika. 🙂 The new blinds minus the swag are certainly a big improvement, but the curtains really add the finishing touch. See for yourselves:

Now for the how. We purchased a curtain rod made specifically for bay windows. You can find it at Smith + Noble. You could probably try to make your own out of regular rods, but honestly, it was challenging enough with a rod that came with connectors and was meant for this space. I can’t imagine the amount of cussing that would occur when rigging one up! You could also try JCPenney. We ended up buying our family room rod there, because we needed an extra long extension rod. They were the only game in town for that length. You can see a picture of that here. The white curtains are the Cameron Cotton Drape from Pottery Barn, which I think are a great deal. The ring clips are from Target. Target also has a nice curtain rod selection.

Here are all of the posts at Young House Love you should check out:
#1 Picking The Perfect Window Treatments
#2 Seven Cheap Ways To Crisp Up A Room
#3 The YHL Take On A Few Controversial Issues
There site has tons of really good information and how-tos. And truthfully, they answered the bay window question several times in the comments section of those posts. But maybe this will help someone to have it all here in one place. Hope this helps.

***UPDATE*** I completely forgot about the brackets! I didn’t care for the brackets that came with the curtain rod. So I bought new ones. You can find them here. I had the same low opinion of the brackets from Penney’s. In fact, the only curtain rod that came with brackets I do like is from Target. You gotta love Target.