Bay windows are lovely things, allowing lots of light into a room but when it comes to curtains, they can be surprisingly tricky. Over the years, we’ve tried just about every solution going, and there are three options that consistently work well without the expense and faff of templating and having something custom-bent.
1. A bendable bay window track (with a finial like a pole)
This is, without question, our go-to solution. The bendable bay window track that we offer is metal, with a high-quality finish. You can choose ball finials if you’d like it to read as a more traditional pole, or simple end caps for a more contemporary look.
The critical features are that it can be bent on site to fit your bay, and that—even on a wide bay—you can hang a single pair of curtains that stack neatly at either end and glide smoothly when opening and closing, with no snagging or awkward joins. Because it functions as a track, you can use as many brackets as needed. This is particularly important for longer drops (anything over about 2.5m), where the weight of the curtains may require additional support.
It’s bent on site to fit your bay, which makes installation straightforward—and in our experience, it just works. Every time. You can find this bendable bay window track in our Curtain Poles & Tracks category.
2. A classic “swish” plastic track
If your bay window is on the smaller side and your curtains aren’t too heavy, the humble plastic ‘swish’ track is hard to beat. It’s inexpensive, easy to bend to shape, and perfectly functional for lighter curtains. It may not be glamorous, but it does the job well where appropriate
3. A pelmet with a concealed track
If you’re planning to use a pelmet, this opens up another option. You can fix any track you like to the underside of a pelmet board. As long as the track functions well, it doesn’t matter what it looks like—the pelmet will hide it completely.
This works particularly well for larger bay windows, where a pelmet won’t overwhelm the space.
What should you consider?
Before deciding, it’s worth asking yourself a couple of key questions:
How large is your bay window? Large: Option 1 or 3 or Small: Option 1 or 2
Do you want one pair of curtains across the whole bay?
All three options above allow for a single pair, rather than separate curtains at each section.
A note on custom solutions
There are, of course, other options—particularly custom-bent poles or tracks made from templates. These can work well, but they come at a significantly higher cost.
In our experience, some of the more elaborate systems (especially those using passing rings and brackets) don’t perform well enough over time to justify the expense. They have a tendency to catch and snag, which rather defeats the point.
In short: keep it simple. A well-chosen, well-fitted track will outperform a complicated system almost every time.
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