How To Make Your Own

Custom Length Extra Long Curtain Rods

Make extra long, custom length curtain rods from galvanized pipes. A budget friendly solution for large expanses of glass windows and doors.

With the beauty of a wall of glass, there comes a bit of an issue — softening that wall of glass. Which means extra-long curtain rods!

We have beautiful new sliders that open to our original brick patio courtyard that overlooks the lake. This is our hangout spot — where friends and family gather. It needs to feel cozy and inviting!

Yes, more wood trim to be stained first. You can read about the three things we learned NOT to do when staining new trim and not repeat our mistakes!

Now that the trim is all stained, I can tackle adding some softness.

We opted for stationary panels on each side, set a bit wider than the door frame. This answered the need for softness.

But we also needed a lightweight sheer panel to span the width of the wall. One that we could easily pull into service when needed, think cold winter nights. And thin enough that we could tuck it all back behind the stationary panel.

This concept requires a double rod.

It also requires extra long curtain rods — 14 ft long.

It’s fairly easy to find rods that extend to 144-inches with three brackets, one for the center and two for the ends. But I could not find any longer ones in a physical store. Ordering online, they all came with 5 brackets. The extra two brackets would interfere with the ability to pull the sheers across the span of glass to meet in the middle. I could not feel them to get a sense as to whether they really needed those extra brackets to keep from sagging or not. Decided against taking the risk.

Chose to make my own out of galvanized piping.

For less than $30, a plumbing supply house cut four lengths of 7 ft for me.  And from Amazon, I ordered these two large finials to match two smaller ones I already had.

To connect the pipes, I bought a dowel that fit inside the pipes and cut it in half. There was a bit of wiggle room, so I wrapped maybe two layers of duct tape around the center of each dowel. I threaded a pipe over each end of each dowel and squeezed them over the duct tape with the pipes meeting in the middle.

It was a tight squeeze so there is a teeny bit of duct tape mushed between the two pipes. That’s fine with me. It’ll be hidden by the center bracket. And I’d much rather have a tight fit, than ones that might shimmy away from each other. You can barely make out this seam, just to the right of the bracket. I was hoping you’d be able to see it better, but you get the idea. Now I can slide it back into place.

Next, I took these extra long rods and all four finials out to the yard and sprayed them black. Three light coats and they were done.

Now how to finish the ends?

With rubber stoppers of course.

I bought four of these rubber stoppers at a neighborhood home improvement store.

With some scrap wood beneath, hold the stopper with wide end up. You do not need to drill all the way through. The scrap wood is there just in case you get a bit zealous — as you can see, I did.

Have a shop towel or rag handy. Every time you retract the bit, it will bring some of the rubber shavings with it. Wipe those off so that after 7 or 8 times, you will have cleaned out a hole large enough for the bolt end of the finial.

The stoppers hold the finials in place and allow the base of the finial to cover the raw edges of the pipes, Plus, I can pop them on and off if need be.

These glass doors and windows are finally done, the new trim boards stained, the curtain rods installed and both layers of curtains installed. I couldn’t be happier! It’s such a significant project to check off my list.