apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I made a less elegant version of this with conduit that I support with simple hooks on either end of the rod. Couldn't be bothered to cap off the ends with anything -- but 5 years later and it still isn't bothering me.

Years ago, I used chrome plumbing pipe and had the shop thread the ends to accept chromed end caps.

I did the same thing. I bought curtain rod holders from West Elm and conduit pipe. Looks great. If you dont see the sides, you dont have to cap off the ends, but if you do, you can usually buy the endcaps where you get the conduit to make it look a little more finished.

I have to admit I am not fond of that look because there's sooooo much window between the panels on either side. It seems that there's a good reason why it's hard to find such long rods.

Does anyone know where those Matisse-esque curtains are from?

Curtains from Ikea.

I love this idea! We have a super long window that has no room on the side of it. We have been looking forever to find something that would work, this may just be the solution. :)

i'm not sure what you mean by conduit, but we did this with plumbing pipe and couplers. it runs across our homemade "stage" so the kids can put on shows. super cheap and no problems with it!

Rods for sliding doors whatever are one of my pet peeves because they always need a support bracket in the middle, and I am a drapery to one side kind of girl. I have always solved this problem with plumbing pipe because it's rigid enough to span a long distance without needing center support. Conduit is a great idea, too.
I'm presently center-support-free using DIY tensioned wire rope. Mine are exposed, but I've also used the same set up covered by a valance in homes where steel and harware aren't part of the decor.

Ikea has a rod ("index") that will go nearly 12 ft. and costs $7 Cdn. I needed to cover a distance of just over 14 ft so I bought two. Each rod has one section with a narrower circumference that slides into the one with the wider circumference. (They have simple rubber or plastic stops to put on the ends, or you can replace those with more decorative ends they also sell.) I took one of the skinnier halves and slid both ends into the two fatter halves. The result is a rod that could probably be stable enough to cover 16 feet or so, and is fine for my 14 ft . At my place, the window goes right to the ceiling so they had to be mounted on the side walls. We used plumbing flanges for that.. very stable, with a u-shaped bracket in the middle attached to the ceiling. That's thin aluminum, and we painted it white. The walls and drapes are white, so it's barely noticeable. The whole thing cost us less than $20 and it's been up for 7 years.

The tricky bit was figuring out how to take the drapes down to wash them because the ends are in flanges screwed to the wall. In fact, all you have to do is slide the middle bit well into one side, enough to give you a separation in the rod so you can slide them off. It's a little weird, but very easy to do. Easy and cheap is always hard to beat!

I have a row of windows that are about 13' long in my living room, so about 15 years ago, we bought some 1" copper pipe and a connector and made our own curtain rods. At that time the green verdigris was in style so we sprayed the pipes with vinegar and sprinkled salt on it to get the green look. I am going to sand off the green this summer and then seal the aged looking copper to update the room a bit.
To hang the rods, we picked up some wooden wall brackets and painted them to match the wall and we hang curtains with ring clips.

Joanna D, I have the same setup as you and you're right it works great! I left my rods black though. I'm in a rental so I'm going to ask my landlord to buy the contraption off me (or heck, he can just have it... although I'll probably want to practice his own crook ways on him) when I move out since his barely-there dusy blinds didn't cut it for me!