Installing Curtains on an Off Centre Window

I’ve recently made a pair of interlined curtains for a front entrance hall where the window is not centred in the wall.

The left hand side of the window has 21 cm of available wall space, but

on the right hand side there is only 9 cm of wall.

As the curtains were to be hung on a pole this raised a fabrication and installation difficulty because we were not using a pelmet or valance to hide the difference in the wall spaces.

So we had two options.

Option 1:

We could fabricate completely symmetrical curtains and install the pole centred on the window so that the brackets were an equal distance from the centre on both sides.  This would mean that an identical amount of window glazing would be covered by the curtain and the installation would be quick and easy.

Option 2:

We could fabricate asymmetrical curtains and install the pole brackets so that an equal amount of wall space was visible between the finial and the side walls.

Not being one to do almost anything the easy way, I chose Option 2!

To install the pole we first installed the bracket on the right hand side (the side with the smallest available wall space).  We then calculated the amount of visible space and using this measurement worked out exactly where the left hand side bracket needed to be placed.

Without the curtains hanging this arrangement looks a little odd, but I was using the curtains to create the “illusion” that the window was truly centred in the wall.

However, because I was taking more of the curtain to the left hand side wall this meant that the left curtain would cover less glazing than the right curtain which could result in the window looking unbalanced and the illusion failing.

To overcome this I “played” with the spacing between the triple pleats for the right hand curtain.  I increased the size of the spaces on the outer edge side of the curtain and reduced those on the inner side so that the curtain appears fuller and heavier on the outside to balance the look of the left hand curtain.  Additionally, by reducing the inner spaces less of the window glazing is covered which matches the look of the left curtain.

These are photos of the finished heading and full length of the curtains.

You’d never know that the window was not in the centre of the wall.