Window Treatments for Apartments

by Sonja Waldner
(Los Angeles, CA USA)

I am not allowed to remove the blinds in my apartment. The land lady said that I can install curtains that extend over the blinds. Is there such hardware to be bought somewhere?


Hi Sonja

This question reminds me to write an article about this subject. In the meantime I will give you a very quick overview.

The only successful way is to fit a shelf over your window. I'm going to assume that your curtains hanging about 7 or 8 inches further out from the wall would be good.

You need to fit shelf brackets to the wall over your window. Then rest a piece of timber 1 inch by 10 inches by as long as you need wide on top of the brackets.

Then you fix your curtain rod to the underside of the shelf. about 7 inches from the wall. Then to finally hide the shelf fit a valance to the 1 inch leading edge. I often simply staple it on in between the pleats.

Once covered you won't see the brackets or the board. I would fit bigger shelf brackets either side behind where the curtains are going to hang. Then a smaller bracket in the middle. Just so you don't see it sticking out under the valance.

Your timber you can get from the local timber merchant or diy store. It should be fairly cheap.

Then the brackets you can get from the same place or take a look at these to get an idea of what you need.

Shelf brackets

I know it all sounds a bit involved. The end result it worth it properly hanging curtains in an awkward situation. Trying to buy curtain hardware to do this job properly is almost impossible.


Best regards

Lee