A lil modesty

To install Kenutu's new windows, we had to take down her curtain hardware. The curtains were mounted on brass rods anchored into brass posts, but you had to put a lot of pressure on the posts to squeeze the rod into place. Well, 30 years of that and the posts, which are really heavy, aren't well anchored into the wall. Time to find a solution, because those new windows are made for peepers.

The brass posts left three screw holes in the vinyl headliner, and some of the anchor points were torn and unlevel. Whatever solution I found needed to cover that mess, especially since replacing the headliner is no where on the To Do list. 

I found these amazing brass drawer pulls at what should be a nautical museum in Seal Beach, a fantastic shop of maritime magic called Antiques of the Sea. We'd driven past this shop dozens of times and it's always closed, but one lucky day it was opened and it was the answer to my question of what the hell am I going to do about these curtains.

I got some little wooden rounds from the craft store for like $5 and 12 anchor drawer pulls for $12 each. Then I ordered some bungee cord for $5. All in the project was about $150. Yes, that seems crazy but those drawer pulls were too perfect.

Mack stained the wood rounds and cut the screw part off of the drawer pull. Then we used 5200 to glue them together and to mount them onto the wall. That 5200 is more permanent than it needs to be, but we needed the anchor point to be strong and since the base was unlevel at most of the anchor spots, 5200 was the easiest and best solution. Then I cut the bungee cord the length of the curtain base, threaded it through the bottom sleeve of the curtain, and tied the only knot I know in each end... the good ol' bowline.

The brass rods that were the original curtain mounts didn't let the curtains slide very easily. That's not normally a problem but if you want to open the curtain quickly, it may slide the rod out of place or dislodge the mount. Basically we just avoided opening the curtains. But now that we have these gorgeous clear windows, we need those curtains to open.

I figured the bungee cord would allow the curtain to slide open in a fashion similar to that of the brass rods. But I also liked that if I wanted to open one up real quick, I could just unlatch it from one post and anchor it to another one, essentially opening the curtain by folding it over on itself.

The bungee cords also have some give so that when wind blows through, especially the open windows, no hardware is getting too strained. All in all, the function is great, the hardware is more interesting, and now we don't have to subject passing strangers to accidental flashings. We're classy dammit.