Protecting Screen Porch Curtains

I'm making some screen porch curtains which will stay up all year, thru a Wisconsin winter. The old ones got whipped to schreds. Short of taking them down in the winter and accepting the bare look, would like any suggestions on how to leave them up and protect them a little and keep them from blowing around in a blizzard.

I'm thinking of installing a thin muslin or outdoor fabric on the outside of the screens for winter; like my grandpa did years ago, using tack strips. Or maybe placing some small grommets on the hems of the curtains themselves and string them together with elastic to keep them from billowing out and whipping. I'll put some brass chain in the hems to weight them a little for the gentler summer breezes. I'm doing 12 windows, surrounding the entire porch.

Any ideas are appreciated. TIA JPBill

Reply to
WB
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I would figure out how to roll them up and secure with straps (velcro, snaps, buttons). No sense making them go through winter, plus it might look neater to have them stowed out of the way.

HTH

--Karen D.

Reply to
Veloise

How about covers, (similar to what they wrap sails in) made out of sunbrella?

Reply to
small change

I have a screened porch - actually, has windows so it's not quite the same as yours. In the winter, I close the windows. But....some years ago I made "shades" for the windows from double-faced quilting fabric - the kind with a print on each side, batting in the middle. I went for very simple, and put a casing top and bottom, put 2 pair of cup hooks on the tops of the windows and put a dowel through each casing. So I can unroll the shade to cover the window - keeping out hot sun or cold air, and I can roll the shade up on the bottom dowel and pop the dowel into the second pair of cup hooks. (I bound the edges with bias tape.)

I hope you can follow this description.

The sun has faded the printed fabric, but the shades are still intact, and still in use for the same purpose.

Reply to
Pogonip

This might be helpful (or perhaps not).. I was in my semi-local WalMart, and I glanced through the $1.00 fabric table (this is not clearance, but is odd lots, from what I have been able to see)... In any case, they have a few bolts of what appears to me to be a wolven fabric, which is pretty heavy and stiff, and feels like plastic ( I would not want to make garments out of it, that is for certain)... It looks to me as if it would stand all sorts of extreme weather, and not break down.. The patterns and colours are not bad.. So, you may want to check that source.. You certainly could not get a better price.... (laughing)...

As for the whipping problem.. Could you not make the curtains simple shir-on-the-rod, and then simply hang them and put a few of those metal fasterners that they use on tonneau covers (not the regular round "button" snaps, but the other type with the "locking" female grommet on your curtain hems, and the male post installed below the window, and when you want to lock them in place., you can just "snap" them down.. The female portion on the hem would also serve to weight the hems down as well..

Just some thoughts...

me

Reply to
me

You might look around on the web for knitted shade cloth. This is an agricultural product (or it was originally!) meant for shading greenhouses. It comes in several densities, usually expressed as percentage... 90% shade cloth lets only

10% of the light through, 40% lets 60% of the light through as a single, stretched layer.

The traditional color is black, but it's also available in white, blue, beige, red, etc, as well as some fashion colors like jade. It's pretty reasonably priced, usually in the $7-10/yard range for 6 ft wide. Makes really good roman shades that could be left rolled up in the winter winds, or tied down with grommets in the bottom hem if you wanted to leave them down in the winter. Sewn as traditional curtains, you could simply bundle the closed curtains and tie them into a bundle for the winter.

Reply to
k

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