Look, I admit there's nothin' revolutionary about
making a curtain rod out of a dowel, for sure. Making a modern version?
Mmm, maybe? So that's what I'm here with today, a modern dowel
curtain rod.
Creating a curtain rod with dowels is super easy to do, especially as dowels
are affordable, coming in oodles of diameters and lengths.
FYI, when you're at the ol' home improvement store, you may have to wander to
find the longer than four foot ones. No biggie; you can envision more
projects while there!
But I know. Dowels. Hey, they are darn cool, uber versatile, and little sticks of fun.
This curtain rod I assembled is for a narrower, single window on
our stair
landing. The landing, ahhh yes, I must finish that project sometime in
my lifetime then do a big fancy
stair
reveal.
Close. I'm close.
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Aw, my sweet Hailey there. *sniffle* |
See, in general, I'm not a big window-covering person, as in, covering windows
over. I like the light and seeing out. But ya know, I get it,
privacy is kinda important sometimes.
Too, despite everything you've seen
in this house to date to the
contrary, I'm a minimalist at heart. And have a rampant
dust allergy. Thank goodness for allergy shots. Sooo, more things that
collect dust are not high on my priority list.
I know, I know, decorative, layers,
texture, finishing touches, frames windows, yep, gotcha. Still. Not
really a curtain person. Except maybe
in the basement to contain visual clutter.
Still.
What prompted this lil' project though?
Well. Our neighbors to the west moved out but have kept the building as
a rental. New neighbors have moved in which of course is not an issue.
What is? Well. Both floors of new neighbors leave their bathroom
lights on twenty four/seven. Yep. Both. 24/7. And
those bathroom windows face our house.
During the day, eh, who cares, other than wasting massive amounts of
electricity but at night, that's where the issue is for me.
I like to sleep, when I can, in full darkness. Hence of course
those blackout curtains
I made once. And
the second round
too.
Any tiny itty bitty seemingly insignificant light on some electronic gizmo or
anywhere is too much for me to bear. If I can, I tape over those lights
with electrical tape. Yeah, what can I say.
So if we have
the bedroom
door open at night which we are wont to do when it's toasty out, get those
cross breezes going, let Finn wander off to his bed in Mike's office, this new light comes streaaamming through the window on the landing and
straight into my brain.
In perusing the ol’ interwebs for inspiration, I came across quite a few cool
ones on
Etsy.*
Ya know, Etsy is great, you can find a tremendous amount of really really cool
stuff which is fantastic. What gets me on occasion? Pricing.
I get it, obviously of course handmade but, I mean….crazy easy things to
DIY for excessive prices? …yeah, no.
So
the idea I ran with,* they’re asking about a hundred and twenty. Sorry. Can't.
Instead, I saved about a hundred and thirteen, built my own. Yeah.
For seven bucks:
- one 1” x 4’ poplar dowel*
- pair #8 hanger bolts*
On hand, I had a hunk of inch and a quarter diameter dowel which I used for
the off-the-wall posts.
So first, easy peasy,
measure a million times, cut once. Solid rule. And I designed from there.
I went with four inch long pieces for the posts and cut the rod piece at
thirty two and a half.
Next was drilling the itty holes in the post ends. First, find center of
the post dowel with a
straight edge,* measuring across the full diameter width in two places and drawing a handy
X. Marks the spot!
I tried to be all carpenter-y and make my life easier as drilling straight
holes here is kinda key.
Took a piece of
scrap wood, screwed it to my table, and with a
Forstner bit,* drilled out an inch and a quarter hole using my
portable drill guide.*
This allowed me to plop one of the posts in there while I balanced the drill
guide over it. Yes, use larger scrap next time, now I know.
With a
drill bit,* zip zip holes. Were they straight and center? Ehhh quite close
enough. Time to save for a drill press!
Tighten those hanger bolts into the holes and I was on a roll.
Ah...roll...dowel pun.
I spent a good several minutes standing at the workbench staring blankly.
As we had our
chemo consult for Finn
earlier in the day (who is doing soooo much better now, thank you!), I was not
at my best.
Turning to trusty
AutoCAD,* I drew the wall placement which determined this whole modern dowel curtain
rod’s assembly.
See, I used CAD to dimension everything for me, no guessing, no muss, no fuss,
no unreliable brain-powered math needed.
Armed with information, I aligned the dowel rod piece over a post piece,
measured measured measured then poking around, found some 1/4” dowel remnants
to use as connecting pins so a 1/4”
Forstner bit* it was.
Trouble with dowels, heh, ya know, they're round, they roll, so I
clamped*
as best I could.
Drilled*
through the curtain rod piece into the post piece, did a big wipe-my-brow
whew, it worked, then did the second one.
Temporarily pinned it all together and hot damn, I was proud of myself!
Now, time to install this modern dowel curtain rod!
A little freaky standing on a ladder with
the entire stair
trailing down to my left, but, focus focus.
Holding the modern dowel curtain rod up on the wall, eyeballing for level
(though I did check for real), I smacked the hanger bolts into the wall to
make hole-drilling dents.
One into a stud and one into a
metal screw-in wall anchor* after some minor trial and error, the posts are twisted in, the rod laid
across the top, the dowel pins
pounded in,* and wow, I did it!
I had picked up two curtains from the thrift store, one that shockingly
matches
the wall color,
layered them together and with some wired jute from the
Dollar Tree,* up they went.
The green one is short which isn't horrible to me (yet) and the natural color
one is very very long which also isn't horrible (yet) but we'll see how this
works out when I get the landing done.
Ok! There we have it! A modern dowel curtain rod! Sure, it's
not total blackout but drawn, it is darker so I’m gonna go sleep now!
ETA: Figures. This goes up and they finally turn the lights off!
Regardless, this actually made a bigger difference than anticipated so
yay darker sleep!
*The Etsy links are Etsy affiliate links. The dowels, drill bits, and
mallets are Lowes affiliate links. The hanger bolts, Forstner bits,
portable drill guides, and cordless drills are Home Depot affiliate links.
The straight edges, Forstner bits, clamps, and metal screw-in wall
anchors are Amazon affiliate links. The AutoCAD link is an AutoDesk
affiliate link. The Dollar Tree link is an affiliate link for Dollar
Tree. Mwah, thanks! Please see the "boring stuff" tab for more
info.
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