You're Skipping One Crucial Step When Hanging Up Your Curtains

If something feels missing in your space, it's often that your window treatments aren't eye-catching enough. Adding the right curtains to a room makes it feel tied together and thoughtfully-designed. It can make it feel like everything was carefully-curated and specifically-selected to fit in that space. However, if you hang up a set and it doesn't look as impressive as the examples you see on Instagram, it might not be the quality of the panels that's off. Instead, you most likely missed one crucial step when hanging the curtains, and that's taking the time to train them. 

That's right, you'll want to train your panels if you want to hang them in perfect, magazine-worthy pleats. Those don't just happen! It's not enough to just slip the fabric over the rod to have it ripple seamlessly to the ground. Instead, you need to take a steamer and cajole the fabric into position. Here is a closer look into how to do that. 

While you might be able to position your curtain into pleats by hand, you won't want to do that every time you need to open or close them. Whether you draw them closed during the evening or move them out of the way while you vacuum, it's going to become quite the hassle to maneuver the fabric back into its folds each time. That's why you need to train them."Training your drapes will ensure the panels will follow the pleat style throughout the fabric from top to bottom," Davina Ogilvie, founder of window treatment brand Wovn Home, told Better Homes & Gardens. To pull that off, grab your handheld steamer.

Simply run the steam down the length of the curtain, warming it up and making it pliable. Then, pleat it into the folds that you want, being careful to make them evenly-spaced. Once you have them arranged, take a rope, ribbon, or twine, and loosely tie it around the pleated panel. This will keep the folds in place while they cool. Leave that for about two days so they can set, and then untie them. The end result should be trained folds. 

If you don't have a steamer, you can also give your curtains a custom look with a hair straightener. If you want an even crisper look, consider pinch pleating your loose curtains, then using clips, like Aageme's Stainless Steel Drapery Hooks, to keep the folds in place. To help them keep their shape on the bottom, consider adding curtain weights to the hems, like Dritz Home's Drapery Weights.