Update to Outdoor Curtains

Well, it’s been nearly four years since we made outdoor curtains out of drop cloths and, overall, they have held up great.  There has been some rusting around the piping, but it’s not too bad; however, the clip rings did not hold up at all, and the tie backs eventually succumbed to the elements.  We do take these down every winter, and they have survived our Midwest thunderstorms, tornado warnings and high winds with no problems at all.

I had my doubts about that first set of curtain rings, as they were wood and metal…the metal rusted and the wood broke.  So, to fix the curtain ring situation, I got some simple black grosgrain ribbon and sewed that, tab-style, to the drop cloth.  It was just a bummer I had to get the sewing machine out and sew them on, but, at least by using the grosgrain, it wasn’t too expensive and I had nice edges without any real hemming. Now, we could have slid the ribbon tabs right onto the metal rod, but then it didn’t slide very well.  We tried some plastic shower curtain rings from the Dollar Store, but they didn’t slide much better than the ribbon did, so, we purchased some metal shower rings from Lowe’s and it is all holding up well.  It wasn’t the cheapest solution at about $10 for 12 rings, but it’s working great.


To replace the tiebacks that fell apart from the exposure to the elements, we got metal curtain holdbacks, and screwed them into the post as shown here.  We tried just one, but one wasn’t enough to keep the curtains back--even in the lightest breeze.  With two for each post, the curtain is held in place perfectly.  Now these can be expensive, but ended up free for us—my mom found a good deal on them somewhere and contributed them to the cause. 

The mildew problem has been less and less each year, but I do give them a good bleaching in the fall when we bring them in and, again, in the spring before we put them out.

  



Would love to hear about other experiences/solutions with outdoor curtains, too!