Window Treatments for Sliding Glass Doors

[legaleagle]

We have a panel track system that I bought from Smith and Nobel years ago. The tracks are attached to the wall above the door. Then you attach fabric panels to each track (my door's system holds three panels). I like it -- it's simple, neat, easy to use, and allows me to use fabric. I didn't want blinds.

I've always been intrigued by these - glad to know they hold up well! Do your kids leave it alone pretty much?

[baymom]

I have this setup on our sliding doors.

We face south and get sun all day long. Our sliding doors are huge and right next to it, there is a huge window too. The doors + window take up more than 1/2 of one side of our living room. In the summer it is so bright and gets so hot. To deal with this, we put Gila UV/heat film on the sliding doors and window. We got ours at Home Depot and installed this ourselves. It came in 2 diff levels of protection...one that blocks more uv/heat and one that blocks less (don't remember the exact numbers but something like 75% vs 40% or something). We went with the highest protection first but I hated how much light it blocked. So we tore it down the next day and got the lesser one. It made a HUGE difference in the amount of heat that comes in.

Then as an additional barrier, I got the double curtain rods. Due to the sun and the dog, I didn't want to spend a lot on curtains. I went with the MERETE curtains from IKEA (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60111986/). They are a heavy canvas and I love the grommet top. I have 4 panels of the white in back and in the front only 2 panels of the brown (it's more of a army green/brown). I usually keep the brown on the sides..like pushed all the way to the sides. The white ones are almost always closed...is that the right term? I mean they are always going across the length of the rod to filter the light. Usually i think with the double rod system you have a sheerer fabric in the back. But with the amount of sun we get, I went with the heavy canvas. The only issue is that since it's a thicker fabric, the part of the curtain along the rod sometimes touches the rod that's in front of it. It doesn't bother me at all. When we need it dark, I pull the brown ones out....2 of them when fully extended cover the whole length of the sliding doors.

A note about the MERETE curtains, they used to come in the longer length 108" (or is it 118"?). Now they come in 98" only. I found out the hard way. Our original brown ones faded a lot (it's been about 6 years) so I bought new ones. I didn't notice the length until I hung them up. I just added a black border to the bottom of them. Looks better than before! The white ones are the original ones from 6 years ago. They are holding up real well and have been washed many times. The only problem i had was that I don't think I pre-shrunk them properly before I got them hemmed....so yah...now they are a few inches too short.

We have the cheapy metal blinds on the window next to the sliding doors. I HATE the way they look. But they are SO functional and I don't know what to replace them with.

Joules--Your window looks beautiful! It's what I was leaning towards, so it's nice to see what it actually looks like in someone's house--thanks for the picture! I was wondering if you have multiple panels of sheers or just one? For longer windows, is it okay to use more than two panels (one for each side) or does that just look weird? Also, for your side windows with the blinds that you don't love but are functional, how about putting matching curtains to your sliding glass door over the blinds? That way you can close them and have it look pretty/coordinated? Or is that a major design faux-pas?

[baymom]

Have you tried searching on houzz.com? If you do a search for "curtains sliding glass door" there are lots of pictures to give you some ideas.

Thanks Elbenn! I love houzz.com for inspiration but hadn't even thought to look there for this. Will check it out!

[baymom]

We have a panel track system that I bought from Smith and Nobel years ago. The tracks are attached to the wall above the door. Then you attach fabric panels to each track (my door's system holds three panels). I like it -- it's simple, neat, easy to use, and allows me to use fabric. I didn't want blinds.

Thanks LBW--I'd never heard of these before and just looked it up online. What a neat idea!

[joules]

I just saw this on the Nate Berkus show. He says he does this in every single remodel he does and he recommends that everyone who buys pre-made curtains do this to customize it and make it the perfect length. Your curtains look great!

Thanks! I was hoping for a larger black border but totally forgot to re-calculate for it when I was sewing it on. But even so, I really like this look and would do it again in the future.

Joules--Your window looks beautiful! It's what I was leaning towards, so it's nice to see what it actually looks like in someone's house--thanks for the picture! I was wondering if you have multiple panels of sheers or just one? For longer windows, is it okay to use more than two panels (one for each side) or does that just look weird? Also, for your side windows with the blinds that you don't love but are functional, how about putting matching curtains to your sliding glass door over the blinds? That way you can close them and have it look pretty/coordinated? Or is that a major design faux-pas?

I have a total of 4 panels of white. So 2 on each half of the curtain rod. I would definitely do more than one panel per side....especially if you go with grommet tops. The more panels you have the fuller the curtains look. The grommet tops are really "efficient" at gathering the fabric when you pull the curtains back...meaning they fold the curtains really compactly. So if you take a close look at the one panel of brown I have on the side, since it's folded back it looks tiny and kind of wimpy there.

We have a total of 2 panels of brown - only one on each half of the curtain rod. This works for us because we never really use them...they are really there mainly for decoration...so they are never fully extended. They are just hanging at the sides to kind of frame the window. When fully extended, they look like a flat piece of fabric that's stretched across the length of the rod. We only do this when watching a movie during the day...which rarely happens. If I were to use them more often, I would prefer the look of a fuller curtain so I would buy 2 more panels.

As for the side window, yes I've seen that done a lot on design shows where they just extend the curtains all the way to cover both sets of windows (So definitely NOT a faux-pas!!). I really like the look, but couldn't make it work for us. I couldn't find any cheap and readily available curtain rods that were long enough. And because our place is so small, the space under my window is actually used a lot - I have a small table there with my laptop setup there. Curtains would just get in the way. I think I would like to put the fabric blinds there (wood or fake wood ones would be way too heavy). My mom has the Hunter Douglas kind and I really like the way they look and work. However they aren't as effective as the metal ones in keeping light out when needed.....so I was thinking maybe a clean roller blind on top of that? Plus the fabric blinds for a window our size are pretty expensive and I would want the white ones....but our current metal ones get so dusty and dirty whenever I open the window. I'm afraid of paying for expensive white fabric blinds and then having them get dirty. I'm just paralyzed with indecision!