Sometimes the projects in my mind do not go as planned in real life and while this one ended differently I still managed to make the cheapest curtain rods to date. In my mind I was supposed to be making knock off West Elm curtain rods. I did make a couple so I can show you how easy they are to make but those curtain rods will not be making an appearance in my dining room or in my “land of the misfits room”.
I have two rooms that connect to each other. This is a before picture-way before I painted and added my drapes. And PS…if you are looking for a paint color Silver Drop by Behr is the bomb diggity. You’ll soon notice I use Behr paints quite often. I’m pretty happy with the quality and the price but the true reason is because I have no idea where a Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore store is since I’m directionally challenged.
Both rooms rarely get used and the living room I now call the “land of the misfits” room. When we first moved in anything that didn’t fit in our family room got deemed to this room. At first I was worried how everything would fit together and I will have to say that this misfit room is becoming my favorite. For now it is my “office” until I can do some DIYing in what will one day be my real office (another day, another post).
Both rooms have windows totaling 6 windows. I needed curtain rods for my custom curtain panels. I know good curtain rods are not cheap and I didn’t want to buy cheap rods. I had some before and I will say they aren’t wonderful. They tend to sag, especially if you are using heavier fabric like drop cloth curtains.
Since I love Home Depot and know how to get there I did some wandering around their aisles trying to come up with an idea. There are a ton of ways to make your own curtain rods…with copper piping or PVC piping, just look on Pinterest and you’ll find all kinds of ideas. I knew I wanted to use wood…for me it’s easy to work with and I knew it wouldn’t sag. Let me introduce you to a new friend.
I knew wood dowels could be my best bet. If you there are any wood dowel makers out there please start making 8 or 10 foot wood dowels. Maybe they already exist but they sure aren’t in Home Depot (Psst..you can find wood dowels that are long online that are meant for closets. They are a little bit more money). The longest dowel is only 48″ long in store. That *might* have worked for my misfit room since those windows are singles but my dining room windows are large so the 48″ wooden dowel is a no bueno. But I had a solution.
If you are a professional designer or a perfectionist or someone that thinks things should have a purpose (the man I’m married to) you might want to stop reading. My curtains in these two rooms have no purpose whatsoever. They strictly exist to look pretty. I do not close my curtains on our first floor at night. If you are a peeping Tom you will like my house. I just wanted something to soften my room up. So with that in mind I knew I could cut my dowels in half and just make short curtain rods. (At this point I still thought I was doing West Elm knock off rods-just a short kid version of them)
You’ll want to cut your rods first. Do NOT fear, do not close this page and give up. Cutting wood is easy peasy. You can use a regular hand saw you have laying around or a box saw. I used my compound miter saw since it’s quick and easy but a hand saw works just as well. Once you get your hands on a power saw though there is no going back. I cut mine in half so I had 2 foot rods. You can cut them to whatever length your little heart desires. In hindsight I wish I would have cut mine shorter but whatev.
Next up is spray paint…any color here will do. I was so careful spray painting too not wanting to have any drip marks thinking these West Elm knock off rods will rock your world…and when this project was over you really can’t even see all of my hard work. Seriously though, look how professional my spray painting method is…ha!
Keep that in mind…it doesn’t have to be perfect. You only see a little of the rod (none on mine) and they will be hung 8-9 feet up. I have no patience…none…ziltch. Once my rods were dry I immediately started hanging my drapes. Even though I wasn’t officially done. I bought curtain rod brackets at Home Depot to hang mine.
This is where things took a turn. I hung my rods, hung my curtains stepped back and maybe said a 4 letter word.
I really didn’t like that little bit of rod showing. My choices were to try to make this situation work or re-cut all of my rods. Guess what I choose? I moved my rod over a little more so it didn’t cover so much of the window and spread my curtains out more over the rod so none of the rod was showing. I’m tentatively happy with this decision, you never know when things change in my mind though.
This, however, is when I realized my West Elm knock offs were not happening. I knew if I tried more 4 letter words were going to come flying out of my mouth so I called this project done and hung all 8 curtain panels this way.
If you have more patience than me this is how easy it is to make these knock off rods. You’ll want to buy one more wooden dowel but it needs to be slightly thicker than your rods. You need to cut about an inch or so of wood (2 for each rod) of the bigger dowel. Spray paint those little pieces the same color as your rod.
Use good quality wood glue and glue the little pieces onto the curtain rod. Let the glue dry and done! These rods are thin enough that you can just slip the whole rod including the end piece through the curtain’s rod pocket and most clips will fit over as well. You can always use a tiny screw and drill a hole to attach the little piece…but I bet I’d lose you quickly with that idea.
Either way you make them, wooden dowels will be on the top of my list as curtain rods. And when I find 9 foot wooden dowels I’ll be sure to let you know.
Notice Silver Drop by Behr on my walls…love!
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