Dear TEOT: Affordable Bedroom Curtains

We recently got a note from a reader, Courtney, who is seeking affordable curtains for her and her boyfriend’s bedroom.

Courtney already has woven shades on the window and her boyfriend is complaining that the shades filter the light but don’t block enough and a lot of morning sun is still pouring through. Her budget is ideally less than $60.00. The bed in the room is dressed with this quilt and furniture similar to this. After I sent her some suggestions she wrote back,

I like them all!! Thanks for sending this over. I think the first and third are my favorite, just to break it up a bit. My boyfriend was a little worried about the light coming through (he is basically wanting Vegas blackout curtains). While I know these options will not provide that, I think it should still help a little. What do you think?

Thanks again for sending these!

Here’s my advice to Courtney and her boyfriend-

If the curtains aren’t lined it will provide minimal light blockage coupled with the woven shade. Hotel curtains are blackout curtains and you have to specifically buy that. If curtains/drapes are dark in color and are lined then that will probably get you as close as you can get to blackout without buying blackout.

I have ivory, lined linen curtains from Pottery Barn in my bedroom and no shade and they probably provide maybe a little more light blockage than what you are getting out of the woven shade by itself.

I don’t think Courtney wants to go up in price so I kept them pretty affordable, even on sale the PB drapes are roughly $100 a panel. But I did a little more looking and found these,

1 Crate & Barrel Kendal Yellow Curtain/ 2 Assembly Home MOA Double Arrow Curtain/ 3 Overstock Cream Pinstripe Linen Curtain/ 4 West Elm Steel Cotton Canvas/ 5 West Elm Painterly Jacquard Curtain/ 6 West Elm Ikat Ogee Linen Curtain/ 7 Crate & Barrel Lila Curtains/ 8 Crate & Barrel Pippa Persimmon Curtain