Tab Drapes The Easy Way To
Dress Your Window

What's good and what's bad about tab drapes? To find out the best way to use these kind of window treatment styles take a look here and make sure you end up with that designer window treatments look.

To start they are a really modern window treatment style, so if you want a contemporary window treatments then I would seriously consider buying curtain styles like this.

They are very simple window treatments. The tabs along the top of the curtain panel are used to hang the curtain from a decorative curtain rod.

How to hang your tab drapes the easy way

Tab Top Thermal Insulated Drapes

To start with I fix the curtain rod brackets to the wall over the window. Usually 5 inches over the top of the window and about 4 or 5 inches out from both sides. This allows the curtain to stack off the window when the curtains are opened off the window. Hanging drapes of this style at this height stops you seeing the top of the window between the tabs when they are closed over the window. It still amazes me how often people hang them too low over their windows. It just looks terrible trust me.

The way I hang them is to thread the decorative curtain rod through the tabs, as in the picture to the left. I do this at ground level, I leave the last tab on both sides hanging free. Then using step ladders I put the curtain rod into the curtain rod brackets fixed over your window. when lifting the rod with the tabs drapes in to the curtain rod brackets. Make sure the curtains don't slide off the ends of the rod (very easy to do :-) ).

Now you have your curtains hanging you need to hook the last tab on to the curtain rod on both ends. The reason you do that after hanging your rod is because the last tab hangs from the rod on the other side of the curtain rod bracket. This hides the curtain rod brackets between the last two tabs on the curtain panel. It also acts as a curtain stop so the curtain stays locked in place on each end of the curtain rod.

Then to finish of how to hang drapes with tabs all you need to do is to fit the curtain rod finials on to the ends of your decorative curtain rod. Then to finish of dress the folds into your curtains starting at the top of each pleat between the tabs and work down. Then if the pleats are not hanging neatly. Use strips of scrap fabric as bands that you can tie around the curtains top middle and bottom to hold the pleats in place for a few days. The trick is to tie the bands tight enough to hold the pleats in place. Not so tight though that they crush the curtain fabric.

Now a word of warning about using tab curtains

This curtain style if used as working curtains, as in opening and closing every day. The tab drapes get untidy very quickly and need to be dressed back into their pleats almost everytime you use them. So my personal recommendation with this kind of curtain style is to use them to dress the sides of your windows. Then fit a shade or blind to cover just the window. This would be then used for privacy on a daily basis.

Now if casual curtains are to your liking then you can completely ignore what I have just said. Personally casual (scruffy) curtains just bug me no end ;-)