Curtain tracks provide an interesting alternative to simple curtains Curtains can really transform a room, and you’ll want to hang them with as little fuss as possible. Our KVARTAL curtain tracks provide a dynamic solution that’s convenient and easy to use. For a simple set-up with a single pair of curtains, you might opt for our basic single track rail. If you want a more modern looking window treatment, the triple track rail makes it possible to easily slide multiple panel curtains across each other. Curtain tracks: simplicity with a range of accessories We’ve got a range of extra bits to help you select the best curtain track system for your room. Corner pieces are available for both single and triple track configurations, so going around corners is simplicity itself. Installing your curtain tracks is made even easier with our miter box and saw to cut the rails to the appropriate length. And of course we also have all the wall and ceiling fittings you’ll need to hold the track in place.

There’s even a KVARTAL draw rod to help you to arrange your panel curtains exactly as you like. And you will like.Ikea Curtains PanelsSliding Panel CurtainsSliding Curtain PanelsIkea Track CurtainsIkea Window PanelsHow To Hang CurtainsCurtain IkeaOne Panel Curtain IdeasPanel Track BlindsForwardHow to actually hang those curtain panels from IKEA on the track system. Since their instructions make no sense and their universal language "pictures" are maddening!Quick review: when we first realized we were going to need a nursery (and that we didn’t want to give up the guest room for it, at least not right away), we planned to hire someone to put up a wall with french doors, dividing our ginormous (29 by 13) master bedroom into two sections. Then this started to seem….expensive. More expensive than necessary. So we switched gears and decided to put up a cheaper and more temporary room divider of some sort instead. When we last left off, Dave and I were staring helplessly at the Kvartal curtain hanging system section at Ikea, thinking that surely if we went around a corner there would be a useful (and very lengthy) explanatory poster of some sort, or maybe an actual full time Kvartal assistant to answer our many, many questions.

If there’s one thing Ikea’s short on, it’s explanations. jcpenney 108 inch curtainsWe finally gave up, figuring that when we returned sans kids everything would make itself clear.ready made blackout curtains perth This did not happen. black/ gold stripe faux silk taffeta 96-inch curtain panelWe found ourselves there again, weeks later, no kids in sight or earshot, just as confounded by this mysterious “system” Ikea had come up with. close these curtains yoko duoAs near as we could tell, the deal is that if you want to use the Kvartal panels, you are in pretty decent shape:curtain track gliders swish

They fit right into the little Kvartal track, and you can slide them around, and all is well. curtains merimbulaBut this is not what we wanted. curtains and sheers nairobiFor one thing, the selection of panels is a little lacking. They come in very limited colors and patterns, and all the ones that might have worked were very thin and translucent. I know anything short of a real wall isn’t going to offer a whole lot of privacy, but we did want something we couldn’t actually see through. Ikea also needs to replace the display Kvartal panels a little more often if they want to move those things. The ones there were all beat up and frayed and looked like they wouldn’t last an hour in our house. (Is this the part where I add a disclaimer that Ikea is not compensating me for my opinions on the Kvartal system?

you know I love you and lust after your Strandmon chair, but the Kvartal stuff needs some work, IMHO).If you are not impressed with the panels and want, instead, to get some of the regular old curtains that are “compatible” with the Kvartal system….you would think “compatible” would mean there is some way to just buy the curtains and the track and some kind of….clips or something, and go hang your curtains up, right? This certainly does not seem to be the case, even though we spent a lot of time in Kvartal-land, examining every Kvarcessory and trying to make it so. You do buy little packs of clips to fit into the tracks. But then you also have to buy this strip of clip-holding fabric that you take home and sew onto the backs of all of your curtains before you can use the clips.I do own a sewing machine (I don’t know where it is right now, but I know there’s one in the house somewhere) and I guess, in some very generous definition of the word, I “know” how to use it.

But I prefer not to. Sometimes I see people on the internet make cute pillows and whatnot, and I think, “maybe I should do that sometime.” And then I don’t. The idea of sewing something like 18 feet of this little fabric strip thing onto the backs of curtains made me want to cry. “I think you can do that,” Dave encouraged me. “Maybe Kristi would help me,” I said doubtfully. The end of the saga is that we finally decided the Kvartal system was too much trouble for too little payoff and that there MUST be an easier way to do things. We left Ikea with some cheap curtain rods and hardware that we hoped to somehow rig up so that they would hang from the ceiling instead of the wall and 6 white (non Kvartal compatible) curtain panels that we intended to put on said cheap rods: Merete curtains, $24.99 for two panels Then we came home and thought about it for a long time and ran into a few flaws in the plan that would likely make adapting our cheap Ikea rods and hardware more trouble than it would be worth.

Also, we thought to ourselves, we couldn’t possibly the only people who’d ever wanted to hang some curtains from the ceiling to make a room divider. Google and Walmart came to our rescue. Walmart’s website sells exactly what we needed, which turned out to be the Verona Ceiling Mount Curtain Rod. We ordered three of them, waited for the notice that they were ready to be picked up at the closest Walmart, and we were ready to hang a room divider! (Walmart’s not paying me, either. Not all of my opinions on Walmart are as positive as this one about how easy it is to get ceiling mount curtain rods from them). Update: Looks like those curtain rods are out of stock at Wal-mart right now, but I found a similar system on Amazon (affiliate link): Levolor ceiling brackets Then we got to work! First we had to decide how big to make the nursery part of the master bedroom. The final decision was more or less arbitrary, helped along a bit by outlet placement….we ended up deciding to put the curtain 10 1/2 feet from one wall.

So the final dimensions are something like 17 1/2 by 13 for the master bedroom part and 10 1/2 by 13 for the nursery. Next we made marks on the ceiling in several places to make sure the curtain would go straight across the room. I stood on a step stool by the wall and held one end of the tape measure while Dave stood 10 1/2 feet or so into the room on a stepladder, held the other end, and made Xs in pencil. Then we moved the ladders a few feet and did it again. Then Dave took the first picture of me ever to appear in this blog, I believe. And yet on a stepladder. I am SO dedicated. Also, you can get a preview of the Newburg Green, albeit a cruddy, flash-illuminated one. I am very in love with it. Then I sat on the bed with my laptop and ordered pretty lamps for the nursery and picked out fabric for curtains while Dave screwed the brackets into the ceiling with anchor screws and cursed a lot. This was a tedious process. We had three rods, and each needed three brackets to hold it.

We decided to put the middle one just behind the ones on either side, so that the middle curtain  panels could overlap the ones on the sides and not leave any gaps. Then we put the curtains on the rods, the rods through those little loops, and we were done! The curtains are 8 feet long, and so are our ceilings, so it worked out very nicely. They’re almost flush with the ceiling and they pool on the carpet just a tiny bit. Here it is in the light of day, all finished! There are six panels total, so we can open it up anywhere, but there’s probably going to a dresser on the other side in the middle, so we’ll probably mostly use this spot as the “door.” It’s closest to both the door to the room and to where the crib will be, so, assuming I’m growing a baby who will stay asleep for transfers to the crib, that will be convenient. In case you’re wondering why we forgot to paint the bottom half of the wall there, that’s where the board and batten is going.