There is a lot more to selecting the correct components for your curtain hardware treatment than finding a product that looks nice. You need to ensure that the pieces you're installing will be functional for your curtain treatment. To assist you in choosing the proper pieces, you should have a working knowledge of three common drapery hardware definitions; clearance, projection and return. To ensure that the components you select will not only look terrific in your window but work the way you need them to, a familiarity with these dimensions is important.

In the preceding post for this series, the projection measurement was explained as the distance from the wall or mounting surface to the very tip of the drapery hardware element. Projection is important if you want to make sure that parts of your drapery hardware treatment aren't blocked by other items in your room. This entry will describe the clearance dimension.

Clearance represents the length from the wall or mounting surface to the backside of a drapery rod or part.

The clearance measurement is frequently used with items like valance rods, basic traversing rods and drapery pole brackets. A simple description of clearance could be the total space you have behind a rod to mount one more rod or drapery hardware piece. The dimensions of clearance and return are frequently mixed-up by consumers. While for most drapery rods, the clearance and return and very close in measurement, each of these sizes signify unique things. You may find yourself with too little fabric on custom made draperies if you accidently provide your workroom the clearance measurement rather than the return.

The clearance dimension is of vital significance for layered treatments.

One example of a layered treatment would be pinch-pleat curtains with a valance above. Or, you may want a double treatment like decorative curtains in front of sheers. To make certain you have room for every single layer of your treatment, you need to find drapery rods with suitable clearances. Let's look at this situation as a real-world example. For a double treatment composed of draperies and sheers, you should first determine the clearance for the sheers mainly because they are going to be nearest to the window. For this instance, a suitable clearance for the sheers would be anywhere between 1 or 2 inches.

For the drapery rod that holds the sheers, the projection should consist of the rod clearance together with the thickness of the rod by itself.

Given those dimensions, the projection of the sheer rod will be about 3 1/2 inches. You might want to leave 1/2 to 1 inches of room between the two curtain rods. So, a clearance of near 4 and 5 inches would be required for the curtain rod that will hold the decorative draperies. In cases where your sheers are operable, meaning they open and shut, be sure to consider the thickness of your drapery stack when analyzing the clearance for the outer rod. To determine your drapery stack, close your sheers and measure how far the fabric, when it's bunched up, extends past the face of the rod that it's installed on. If you neglect to incorporate the fullness of the drapery stack, your sheers might touch the decorative draperies in front when closed.

Identifying the clearance on decorative items is sometimes complicated.

A number of decorative items, like wood pole brackets, make getting a clearance dimension complicated. This is because the designs or decorative elements of the piece may restrict the clearance. Consider hanging your second layer in between the brackets on the ornamental element to bypass the reduced clearance. This is a very common circumstance when you're hanging a standard drapery rod in behind of a decorative rod like a wood pole with finials. If the decorative brackets limit the clearance, installing the standard rod just within the decorative brackets would be a good remedy for you to consider.

By knowing widespread drapery hardware terminology like clearance, you will be better equipped to make an informed decisions with regards to the drapery rods for your window treatment.