Help me hang my curtains!

February 2, 2008 6:10 AM

DIY: I'm hanging two sets of rolling curtains from IKEA today in my apartment. Each one will be hanging from the ceiling of a window niche, which is drywall.

I have not had the best of luck hanging curtains from drywall in the past. The anchor points always seem to loosen up over time, so I thought I'd see if I could get some good advice and do it right this time.

Here are a few pictures I took of the window and hardware:
The Window, Curtain Hanger with measuring tape, Curtain Hanger where I need to anchor it, Fasteners / Anchors that I have at my disposal.

Tape measure is in centimeters.

Will it be a problem to mount the anchors so close to a corner? What sort of fastener should I use? Also, my apartment is in Europe, in case specific construction methods here have any bearing on the answers to my questions.

posted by syzygy to home & garden (3 answers total)

If I were you I would ditch the anchors and use just the screw from the anchor pictured on the left. Being close to the corner is actually a good thing in this case, as there is a greater likelihood that there is structural framing of some sort behind the drywall.

I see that there are holes in both the side and the top of your curtain hanger. I would use the side holes to mount the curtains (assuming you can mount the hangers flush with the walls of your window nook and still mount the blind in them - this hinges on whether or not your blind is the exact width or a bit narrower than your opening)
posted by davey_darling at 7:12 AM on February 2, 2008

You could mount the curtain hardware to a "furring strip", then attach that strip using more secure hardware.

A furring strip is a piece of lumber, typically 1x3", cut to fit wall-to-wall. You would use long screws to mount this strip, through the drywall, into the window frame wood underneath. (Or use large dry-wall toggles if there is no frame in that area.)
posted by Fins at 7:26 AM on February 2, 2008

Disaster! I hate sheetrock.

davey_darling: Actually, there are no holes in the sides, and the curtains were just too narrow to have used holes on the sides, had there been any.

Fins: I was thinking about using a furring strip (although I didn't know that was the technical term). Since I've had horrible luck hanging stuff from sheet rock, I thought a piece of wood (that could be more solidly anchored) would probably be a good idea.

But, my girlfriend said that all the other people in our building have the curtains attached directly to the sheet rock, so I figured I'd go for it.

The sheet rock is about 1/2" thick, so I didn't feel comfortable screwing directly into it - too thin and too heavy of a load. First I tried the fasteners on the right. When those didn't work, I tried with the fasteners on the left (picture).

One curtain is hanging, and we're just going to leave it closed. The other failed completely - one of the anchors slipped a couple of centimeters out of the ceiling and was no longer stiff enough to hold the curtain up.

I have decided that:
a. my landlord is a cheap bastard
b. my days of trying to hang anything substantial from sheet rock are over
c. I'm going to find someone who knows wtf they're doing and have them install the §$%& curtains for me.

Thanks for the suggestions, anyway...

Follow-up question: Am I a moron because I can't get crap to hang from sheet rock? Is this really an easy task that only an imbecile could botch? Is there some secret that would have helped me out here?
posted by syzygy at 6:25 AM on February 4, 2008