Curtain Poles in Cork, Plus Rails and Tracks

The pole is the part meant to be seen. It is part of the look, and the curtain hangs from rings on it.

A track is meant to disappear, usually behind a pelmet or a wave heading, and it will take more weight and turn a corner. Rails sit between the two. Which one you want follows from the heading, so decide them together.

This is where most poles bought online fall down. A bay needs the pole bent to the actual angles of your bay, not to a standard corner.

We take the angles, order the bends, and fit it so the rings pass the corners without catching. Long runs across a wall of glass need the right bracket spacing too, or the whole thing sags in the middle inside a year.

Hand drawn is simplest and there is less to go wrong. Corded keeps your hands off the fabric, which matters on a pale cloth.

Corded is also the sensible answer on a very heavy interlined pair, or on a window you can only reach from one side. Both can be fitted to a bay.

Blinds and curtain rails can be fitted with electric operation, worked by a switch or a remote.

They can also be tied into a smart home or an audiovisual system, so the curtains run on the same control as the lights. It suits a high window over a stairs, a big south-facing wall of glass, or a room set up for a projector.

The ends of a pole change the character of it more than the pole does. Plain, ball, spear or glass.

There is a full trimmings wall behind it: tiebacks, hold backs, braids, fringes, key tassels and curtain jewellery. This is the stuff that finishes a job, and it costs very little next to the cloth.

A heavy interlined pair on a long pole is a serious weight, and it pulls out of a bad fixing eventually.

Our fitters find the timber, and they carry the right fixings for dot and dab plaster, for concrete and for steel lintels. If there is nothing solid where the bracket needs to go, they will tell you before they drill rather than after.

You get the hardware specified for the weight your curtain will actually be, not for what looks neat in a catalogue. A five-metre run in a farmhouse and a short sash in a town house need different things, and you will be told which yours is.

Bring the angles off your bay, or let a fitter take them. Poles are bent to your shape rather than your window being made to suit a pole.

One reviewer called it a "Fabulous range of materials and hardware", which is the part of this shop people notice once they have gone looking for a bracket somewhere else first.

These are what people ring about before calling in. Anything else is quicker on the phone.

Bring the width, the drop and a photo of the window. Ten minutes at the counter will sort most poles.

If it is a bay or a bend, we will send a fitter to take the angles. We fit hardware anywhere we fit curtains, including curtains and blinds in Dunmanway and the long runs people have out that way.