When it comes to curtains, precision is important. You need to measure, hang and make sure they match your décor. In this guide we’re going to tell you how to do all of this and more. Starting with the basics, and moving all the way through to giving you some tips on which colours go well with different wall colours!

How to Measure Curtains

When measuring for curtains the most common mistake people make is measuring their windows. If your installing blinds, then measuring your windows is fine but when it comes to curtains you want to measure the length of your curtain pole or the track. When measuring for curtains I would recommend that they sit 10-15cm above the window and 10-15cm wider than the window on both sides. When measuring length for curtains, there’s 3 main lengths:

• Above Sill – These should end about 1cm above the windowsill

• Below Sill – These should end 10cm under the windowsill

• Floor Length – These should end 1cm above the floor

When picking a length, you should think about the style you’re going for and the practicality, for example if you had a radiator under the window, you wouldn’t get floor length curtains.

How to Hang Curtains

Hanging curtains is a different beast in itself and learning how to hang them means figuring out which style of curtains you have in your home. The two most common types of curtains are eyelet curtains and pencil pleat curtains. These are the two most common, so this is what we'll focus on.

How to Hang Eyelet Curtains

When hanging curtains, you’re going to want to thread the pole through the individual holes at the top of the curtain. When threading the curtains, you want to leave the last hole on both sides on the outside of the bracket so the whole curtain doesn’t slide when opening or closing them. When putting them up, make sure the back of the curtain is facing the window.

How to Hang Pencil Pleat Curtains

There are a few steps to this, but we will break it down into nice easy steps for you to follow:

• Step 1 - Ensure you knot all of the cords together at one end of the tape. This makes sure they're secure and won't move around when you start the next stages of the process.

• Step 2 - At the other end of your pencil pleat curtains, hold the loose cords and pull on them gently. You may find you need to push the tape along the cords to help. This is perfectly normal and happens all the time! Make sure to keep evening out the pleats as you go.

• Step 3 - Once you are happy, you can go ahead and knot the cords to keep them in place. Just make sure not to cut them yet! Tucking them away is absolutely fine for now.

• Step 4 - Attach an even amount of curtain hooks at equal distances to each header tape.

There you go, it's as easy as that!

How to Clean Curtains

We know how much of a pain it is when your curtains get dirty. How do they get dirty? We’ll never know but we do know how to clean them:

• Hoovering - First you want to start with hoovering them using the small brush attachment, made for furniture and upholstery, that comes with the hoover. You want to close the curtains and start hoovering gently from top to bottom.

• Steam cleaning – When steam cleaning you’ll want to hoover the curtains first to get all the dust off the curtains. Once your fabric steamer gets to the right temperature you should do a test on a small part of the curtain to make sure it doesn't damage it. If the steamer doesn’t damage your curtain you can go over your curtain with the steamer using a sweeping motion.

• Machine wash – I wouldn’t recommend machine washing your curtains because certain materials have a risk of shrinking but if you do want to machine wash your curtains, you should look at the tag on the curtain and see what it says. 

• Dry cleaning – I know dry cleaning can be expensive but at least this way you know that you won’t have any problems with your curtains.

• Stubborn stains – If you have a stubborn stain that just won’t come out, I recommend rubbing the stain with a cloth soaked in warm water but avoid using any cleaning agents as they could cause discolouration to the fabric.  

How to Match your Curtains with your Walls

When it comes to picking a curtain colour there’s 2 factors you have to consider, the colour of your walls and your decorations. Your curtains should ideally match your decorations or your wall colour.

If you have Grey walls you should make the curtains:

• White

• Cream

• Navy Blue

• A different shade of Grey

• Dark Green

• Baby Blue

• Black

• Vibrant patterned

Our personal favourite curtain colour when you have grey walls are blue curtains, but this does depend on the existing décor within your home!

If you have Blue walls:

• White

• Cream

• Yellow

• Pink

• Brown

• Purple

• Grey

• Vibrant patterns

When it comes to blue walls, our personal favourite colour of curtains to use is grey curtains. You probably saw this coming when you saw our answer to the "grey walls" section of this guide.

If you have Green walls:

• White

• Yellow

• Pink

• Brown

• Green

• Red

• Grey

If you have White walls:

With white being a neutral colour, pretty much everything can work with it, so you can play around and experiment with all the colours to your hearts content.