Rate My Space

HGTV.com has a great site called Rate My Space. People posts photos from their homes and readers can rate their design. You can search by type of room and can search any keywords within those rooms. You can also sort them by ratings or new postings or views. 
There are some great photos out there. If you're like me, you love to copy beautiful rooms. You can post comments and ask questions of the posters and find out brands and paint colors and more. But it's really fun to browse all the designs and think about the future!

Here's a top rated bedroom:

Celebrity curtains

I love looking at photos of rooms to get ideas. And what better rooms to look at than celebrities'? They have lots of money to spend on their beautiful homes. I love the interior design of Tori Spelling's home. I like the way they used curtains in her kids' rooms:



Speaking of 90210 actors, here's a room in Jennie Garth's house. I really like the iridescent looking fabric. Simple ball finials are used here.



Check out Tommy Hilfiger's classic style. He goes with natural blinds over his French doors with curtains pulled back to let in the sunlight.



Nicky Hilton's black curtains contrast with her white walls. She used finials similar to our "basket" finials. A Flat black or satin black finish would work here. She also uses holdbacks to pull the curtains back.

Use a curtain rod to create a closet

If you don't have a closet, you can make one. Use a curtain rod to section off a portion of your room. It could go the whole length of the room and have end mount brackets for hanging. If your room is long, use ceiling brackets to support the curtain rod.

If you have an alcove, you could hang a standard curtain rod above the opening or use a cafe curtain rod to attach to the wall or molding.

Make a canopy bed with curtain rods

Want to have a canopy bed without buying a new bed? Use curtain rods. Measure the width behind your bed where you want the curtains to hang. Then measure the length along the bed where you want the curtains to hang. They can be short and just hang along where your pillows are or be longer and hang the whole distance of your bed.

You will need the curtain rods and the ceiling brackets. If you'd like to dress the rods up a bit, you could even have finials at the end of your rods. In the corners, the rods can either 1) butt up against each other, 2) be separate rods and not touch or 3) be mitered so that the ends match up perfectly.



As far as the curtains go, you could go casual and get sheers. You could go with a more romantic look and get a floral or toile fabric. If you want to go super-formal, you could get silk or velvet curtains.

New use for curtain rods, idea #3

Want to make a frugal and easy headboard? Or maybe you want to add color to your bedroom but can't paint because you are a renter? Use a curtain rod and center it behind your bed at the desired height. Hang your choice of curtains to add tons of color! You could also use a cafe rod and eliminate the need for finials and brackets.

You could also drape a quilt over the curtain rod like Martha Stewart did here.

New use for curtain rods, idea #2

Here's another fun use of a curtain rod. These tiles are from SDG Artistry.  You can hang this on any wall that needs a little art.



The best curtain rod for this would be our round rod, in a smaller size, such as 1/2" or 3/4". Any of our brackets would work for hanging and you could even finish it off with finials. Don't forget that you can order all of this in any of our 18 finishes.

New use for curtain rods

This is an awesome use of a curtain rod. Our cafe rods would work perfectly.  Just buy a rod that is a little shorter than the width of your desk or table.

IKEA sells a paper roll for $4.99. It is 18.5" wide so it'll fit on most desks. IKEA also has cute bins in any size and material. I'm partial to these galvanized ones for $14.99 called SKRIN (2 sizes).