We decided to take down all the cornice boards over our windows and hang cafe curtains in the living room slides. We found a nice curtain rod system at Ikea that is their Kvartal system. The following how-to shows how we hung the curtain rods up in one of our living room slides.
First of all, for the recliner slide, we have windows on two walls. The couch slide had them on three walls, so a “U” shaped rod was required. For this slide, we need an “L” shaped rod. So, we have two straight pieces and a curved corner.
The pieces that join the tracks together have several set screws in them and slide inside the top half of the tracks. You set the screws and the two pieces are locked together.
You then put one of the support post pieces (see below) in the track, then put the curved track on and tighten those set screws down.
These are the support posts if hanging the rail underneath something. We are hanging this one underneath the overhead cabinets in the slide. On the other slide, we hung them directly under the slide ceiling. You loosen the set screw and the support piece falls out. You slide that piece into the rail.
The second straight piece needed to be cut to length. First, the length was determined by holding the long straight and curved sections up and measuring out to just short of the end of the slide wall. In this case, it was 21″. Then, outside with the hacksaw. The tracks are aluminum and cut pretty easily.
Once cut, the short piece is joined to the curved corner piece and we now have an “L” shaped rod.
Next, it is time to put the overhead support pieces up. They have a hole in the center through which you run a screw up into the overhead material.
With the supports all installed, it is time to put the track up into place, placing the support pieces up into the supports and tightening down the set screws. The piece, below, was not all the way flush into the support when the picture was taken. The track actually sits up flush under the support when done.
With the track up in place, it is time to mount the wall support for the short end. Since our cabinet doesn’t fully extend over the blinds, we needed a wall mount to mount the rest of the track to.
A set screw holds the mounting portion of the bracket in place. With the screw loosened, you slide the mounting plate out and figure out where on the wall to place it. Then, a couple of screws hold it onto the wall.
You slide another joiner piece into the end of the track and use the supplied screw to screw the bracket down onto the rail using one of the set screws on the joiner piece.
Now that everything is attached, time to slide the little roller hangers in the end of the rail.
Once the proper number of roller hangers are installed in the track, a small set piece is installed to keep them from rolling out the end of the rod.
Then an end cap is placed on the rod to tidy it up.
Now it is time to hang the curtains on the rollers.
Looks great! And really good instructions and pictures!!
Great Job! The instructions and picture will be of a big help when I get ready to retrofit our BH with curtains.