What Size Curtain Rod Do You Need?

One of the more confusing parts of buying curtains and curtain rods are to match up the right sizes with each other. For example some people may think that when they are going to buy a valance with a 3 inch wide opening they need a 3 inch wide rod, which isn’t the case at all. When ordering any size curtain you have to remember that the rods always have to be at least ¼ smaller then the curtains opening, which would mean the correct size rod for a 3” valance would be a 2 ½” wide pocket curtain rod.

You need the rod to have some wiggle room to actually get through the pocket. If the rod is the same exact size as the openings you’ll never be able get it through, it will just be too tight of a fit. Another example would be for standard curtain pockets which are usually 1 ¼” and 1 ¾” so that would mean that the rod would have to be less than ¾” in diameter to fit properly.

Another cause of confusion may be how many valances or curtains you would need to get the length you want for your window and that’s very subjective, one rule that I go by is always use two times your window length in fabric, for example if your window is 100 inches long, you would need 200 inches of fabric to get the proper look. If you wanted to show more of the pattern on the fabric then you could use less fabric and stretch the curtains a little more to show off the patterns but lets say you like having a lot of folds in your curtains you would use twice the fabric and maybe even more depending of the window.