DIY Curtain Rods

While we still have plenty to catch up with where we are now, but this is a look at our most recent project.  Our daughter was born in July and since then her room has not progressed any from the unfinished state it was in before she got here.  We have had her crib in our room up until now, but we are all ready to try and make the move.

Asides from the two unpainted walls and the closet that still needs another coat of drywall mud, our next major concern would be the four windows which currently sit with no curtains, blinds, shades, or coverings of any type.  While her room is on the back of the house and very private, we still couldn't fathom putting her in there with nothing covering the windows.

We found a great deal on these blackout curtains from Meijer, but after looking for curtain rods knew there had to be a way to DIY something for much less than the $100 we would spend to hang them all.  We headed to Home Depot and picked up 2 10ft lengths of 1/2" electrical conduit for $2 bucks each, a couple 4 packs of 1/2" conduit straps for $0.80 each, a couple 4 packs of 2" L-brackets for $4.68 a piece, and lastly found an 8-pack of nuts and bolts that would fit thru the L-bracket to attach it to the conduit strap for a dollar or two.  The final cost was around $17, much better than the price of curtain rods if we can get them to work.  You probly want some spray paint too, but we knew we had some at home already that we wanted to use. 

I started out with my trusty hacksaw and cut the 2 10ft lengths of conduit down to 4 4ft lengths, which would give us approximately 6 extra inches on each side of the window.  I actually would have liked to make them even a little longer than that, but our windows are in the corners I ended up not even being able to get the full 6 inches of overhang on the corner sides.  With the pieces cut I attached the conduit strap to the L-bracket with the bolts and then took the entire assembly along with the rod out to the garage for painting.  I even took the screws I was using to attach to the wall and stuck them in the box to spray paint the heads of them so nothing stuck out when it was finally in place.  You could also paint all the pieces individually before assembly, but I figured that you might lose some paint on the bolts when tightening them up so it just seemed easier to paint it already put together.

Here is a look at the pieces all painted...

 

The cunduit will then fit into the strap like so...

Screw your L-brackets to the wall and you are good to go, here is a sneak peak at the finished product.



We are hoping to finish the bedroom (asides from the closet, more on that later) , this weekend and I will post more pictures of the final result.  This at least gives you an idea of how easy it is to DIY some curtain rods for way cheaper than store bought ones.  I have even seen where you could take a block of wood or dowel to hammer into the end and screw a fancy cabinet knob in to make them more decorative.  We haven't got to this but with the rods practically touching in the two corners we could only do this on the 4 outside ends which would just look odd.