Common curtain sizes and how to measure yours

The keys come on the 1st, the living-room glass runs almost to the ceiling, and you're holding the longest curtain pack in the shop. Will it reach the floor, and will two panels close across the glass? Below, you can check a pack against your own window, then follow one window worked through in centimetres before the harder cases.

What are the common curtain sizes?

Imported packs often come in the US standard curtain sizes, labelled in inches: 84, 95 or 108, which is 213, 241 or 274 cm. Packs in Dubai shops are mostly labelled in centimetres. Whichever the label, hang the curtain from a track whose top sits about 1 cm higher than its length, and the hem just clears the floor.

Few packs run longer than 300 cm, so a longer drop usually needs curtains made for it. Curtains from our own workshop start from your measurements instead of a pack size.

How wide should curtains be compared to the window?

Curtain width is two numbers: how long the track is, and how much fabric is gathered onto it. The fabric is the track's length multiplied by the fullness, the extra that makes folds, often about twice.

Allow 15 to 30 cm of track beyond the frame at each side. Closed, the curtain's edges then sit over the wall, so less early light slips round a blackout curtain. Open, it can gather there.

How much fullness looks right depends on the heading:

Makers vary around these ranges. Ours follow the heading, sheers included: 2.5 times the track for eyelet and wave curtains, 2 times for pinch pleat. On eyelet curtains, the pole's length stands in for the track's.

The fullness and the track length together set how much fabric a quote lists. If one quote for your window lists less fabric than another, check its fullness first: lower fullness hangs flatter, so it is a different curtain. Ask for both figures on every quote.

How long should curtains be, and where do you measure from?

A curtain's length is its drop: from where it hangs to where its hem stops. On a track, the drop starts at the top of the track; on a pole, at the top of the pole. An eyelet heading rises a few centimetres above its pole, so set an eyelet pack's pole that much lower than the table says.

Decide where the track goes before you measure. On the ceiling or just below it, less light gets over the top and the curtain uses the room's full height. On a wall, 10 to 15 cm above the frame is common.

The hem has three usual finishes:

• Clear of the floor, by about 1 cm: the easiest to draw every day, and out of the dust and a sliding door's runner.
• Just touching: a neat line, though an uneven floor shows along it.
• Resting on the floor: about 10 cm longer, which closes the light gap under it; it gathers dust and pulls as you draw it.

Above a worktop, as in a kitchen window, the curtain ends about 1 cm above the sill. Where nothing stands below a window that high, it can hang 10 to 15 cm past the sill instead.

A wide floor is seldom level from end to end, so take the drop at the left, the middle and the right. A hem that must clear the floor everywhere is cut to the shortest.

What size curtains does a 240 cm window need?

A 240 cm window usually takes a track of about 280 cm and a pair of curtains holding about 560 cm of fabric, at twice fullness. The working, step by step:

1. The track: 240 cm of window plus 20 cm past each side makes 280 cm. This example uses 20 cm; your wall may allow more.
2. The fabric: at twice fullness, the pair needs 560 cm of fabric across its width, or four widths of a 140 cm fabric, two per curtain. Hems and seams use a little, so the finished fullness lands just under twice.
3. The drop: say the top of the ceiling track is 270 cm above the floor. For a hem 1 cm clear, each curtain hangs about 269 cm.

Now try common packs on the same window. Two 140 cm panels hold 280 cm of fabric, exactly the track's length: closed, they would hang with no folds at all. Four panels, two a side, reach about twice the track. A 250 cm length stops 19 cm short, and a 300 cm one must be shortened by 31 cm.

A living room often adds a sheer and a sliding door to the plan; the page on curtains for a living room works through both.

What changes for tall glass, sliding doors and two layers?

Each adds something to measure: a sheer's height without seams, the wall space beside a door, and the outer layer's width.

Tall glass. Many sheers are woven extra wide, often about 3 m, and hung with that width running from top to bottom. A drop up to that height then needs no seams. A taller sheer is made from several widths sewn side by side.

Most of our fabrics now come 280 to 320 cm wide, so we make a drop within that width in one piece. A few come 140 cm wide. For double-height glass, our fitters bring scaffolding, charged separately.

Lined, a drop this long weighs enough to strain its fixings each time it is drawn. Where the ceiling is gypsum, our fitters set gypsum plugs in drilled holes to hold the brackets. Drawn every day, a curtain this heavy is a good case for motorized curtains.

Sliding doors. An open curtain bunches up at the side; that bundle is its stack-back. Extend the track on that side until the doorway is clear of it. A pair stacks at both ends, a single curtain at one. To judge the stack-back, open a curtain of similar fabric fully and measure it.

Where there is little wall beside the door, a vertical blind may fit better: open, its slats usually take up less width than a curtain's stack-back.

Two layers. A double track usually carries the sheer on the track nearer the glass and the lined curtain on the one nearer the room. Measure each from its own track. If the lined curtain is narrower than the sheer behind it, the sheer's edges stay in view.

Renting: can you size curtains to the track that's already there?

Yes. Where a track is already set into the ceiling cove, size the curtains to it: measure its length and the drop from it. Check that it suits your heading too: a wave curtain needs a track that can take wave carriers.

A track ending where the glass ends lets light in at the sides, and lengthening it means new holes. Without new holes, the options are light ones: a tension rod inside the recess can hold a sheer or a light blind, but not a lined curtain.

We don't fit tension rods or other no-drill systems; every curtain and blind we fit is fixed with screws.

Dubai Law No. 26 of 2007 sets two rules for tenants. Article 19: no changes to the property without the landlord's permission. Article 21: at the end of the lease, the property is returned as it was received, apart from normal wear. The Khaleej Times explainer covers both articles.

Some tenancy contracts permit drilling, provided the holes are repaired when you leave. This is information, not legal advice.

When you move out, we take down tracks, poles and blinds, but filling the holes and painting aren't part of our work. In a tower, we arrange what the building asks of us as the contractor. If it wants an NOC from you as owner or tenant, you request it and pass it to us.

How do you measure for blinds inside or outside the recess?

For a blind fitted inside the recess, give the maker the recess's exact size and let them take off the small allowance a blind needs to run freely. Measure each way three times, then send the smallest width (top, middle, bottom) and the largest drop (left, centre, right).

Check that the recess is deep enough for the headrail and that window handles won't catch the blind. Venetian slats need extra depth to tilt. A Roman blind's folds gather at the top and block the upper glass when it's raised. Fixed above the recess, a Roman blind keeps the whole view.

Outside the recess, add about 5 to 10 cm on each side and above the opening. The overlap cuts light at the edges, which suits a roller blind in a bedroom.

Worth knowing: a ready-made pair is sometimes the right buy. If a common length matches your drop, or runs a little long and can be shortened to fit, it can hang well. The panels must also hold enough fabric for their heading. Made to measure earns its cost when the drop or the width falls between sizes.

At the free home visit, The Curtains Dubai measures each window from where its track or blind will sit, and our own workshop works to those figures.

Questions people ask