Custom Drapery

Fortville, IN Custom Drapery

Panels priced by fullness, hemmed after they settle

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Quick Answer

What follows is what we'd tell you in person about this service, including which rooms it belongs in and which ones it doesn't. That second list is shorter but it saves more money.

  • Service: Custom Drapery for Fortville homeowners
  • Service area: Fortville, IN and surrounding areas
    • For anything already installed, service visits are quick because we're working with parts. For new custom orders, expect a measure, then a few weeks of fabrication, then an install appointment we book once the product has been inspected.
  • Insured and bonded
  • Serving Fortville, IN since 2008
Custom Drapery Services

Expert Custom Drapery for Fortville Homes

Drapery is a fabric quantity product, and the rooms that suit it in Fortville sit at opposite ends of the town's price range. The Geist facing plats, reported at an average value near $636,000 with listings to $1.9 million, carry two story walls and applied casing with stools and aprons, which is exactly what a rod and a full length panel want to sit against. At the other end, the 1849 plat gives you tall openings with high head heights and 14 to 22 openings in a single house, so a room can take drapery on two windows and nothing on the rest without looking unfinished. Both beat the bare drywall returns of the newest plats.

Fullness is the cost driver and the thing most people underestimate. A panel that reads generous carries two to two and a half times the width of the opening in fabric, so doubling the fullness doubles the yardage and the labor with it. Fabric is also cut from a bolt in dye lots, so panels added a year later can sit a half shade off the originals. Hems settle: a lined panel relaxes over the first few weeks and the break at the floor changes, which is why we hang first and finish the hem after. Custom drapery runs a national range of $300 to $4,000 a window, and fabrication takes 2 to 5 weeks.

When to Call

Signs You Need Custom Drapery

If you notice any of these in your Fortville home, it is worth booking a measure. None of it is urgent, and none of it fixes itself either.

The rod has bowed in the middle under the weight

A bracket has pulled out of the drywall

A cat has climbed the leading edge to shreds

The room echoes off hard floors and bare windows

A cord loop hangs free in a toddler's room

Closed drapery still lets a stripe of light through

Sun has faded the leading edge of a panel

A bedroom needs softness that a shade alone can't give

The fabric you loved has been discontinued since

Hems break unevenly across one wall

Our Process

How Fortville Window Treatments Handles Custom Drapery

Every job follows the same five-step process. Transparent, thorough, and done right the first time.

1

Finished length measured three places

2

Fullness chosen against the fabric

3

Lining and interlining decided

4

Rod projection checked against the shade

5

Full room yardage held in one lot

Real Project Photos

Custom Drapery in Fortville

Photographs from real custom drapery jobs completed by our crew in Fortville and surrounding areas.

Custom shades measured and installed in FortvillePlantation shutters fitted to a Fortville windowCellular shades in a Fortville living room
Scope of Work

What Custom Drapery Includes

Every Fortville job is documented item by item. Here is what the crew covers.

Rod height and rod width set first, since where the hardware goes decides how the room reads

Finished length measured from the ring or hook down to the floor, at both ends and the center

Floor checked for level across the opening, because an out-of-level floor shows in the hem

Fullness chosen against the fabric and the look, commonly between two and two and a half times the rod width

Widths per panel calculated from fullness, fabric width and the seam allowance, then written on the order

Pattern repeat measured and yardage figured so motifs land at the same height on every panel

Pleat style specified per room, with a sample photo attached to the order so nothing is assumed

Buckram weight selected so the heading stands up instead of collapsing over the rings

Lining specified per elevation, plain, blackout or none, and stated in writing

Interlining added where the fabric needs body or where the room wants weight and quiet

Return depth and overlap at the center dimensioned so panels close without a gap down the middle

Stack back allowed for on the wall so open panels clear the glass instead of covering it

Rod, rings, brackets and finials selected as one set with the panel weight in mind

Mounting substrate found before install day so brackets land in framing or in an anchor rated for the load

Extra brackets added on long rods so the rod can't bow under a full set of lined panels

Hems weighted and corners squared so panels hang straight rather than kicking out

Panels steamed on site to drop fabric memory from folding and shipping

Panels dressed and tied for a few days so the folds train and each panel breaks the same way

Pricing

What Custom Drapery Costs in Fortville

Published national figures for custom drapery run roughly $300 to $4,000 per window. That's a national range for the category, not a quote for anything in Fortville, and drapery has the widest spread of anything we sell for a reason. Fabric is the largest single variable and it's priced by the yard, so fullness and panel count multiply whatever you choose. A large pattern repeat adds yardage before a single panel is cut. After fabric it's construction: lining, interlining, pleat style and hand finishing. Then hardware, which on a long span with heavy panels stops being decorative and starts being structural. Two windows of the same size in Hancock County can land at opposite ends of that range purely on cloth.

By Product

How Custom Drapery Differs by Product

Every product in this trade behaves differently in a room. Here is what that means for this work.

Pinch pleat: The traditional three-finger heading, hand-tacked and stiffened with buckram. It carries formal fabrics well and holds a deep, consistent fold. Specify it in dining rooms and primary bedrooms where the drapery is meant to look tailored.

Euro pleat: A two-finger pleat tacked at the top of the heading rather than the bottom, so the fold opens as it falls. It reads cleaner and more current than a pinch pleat while keeping the same structure behind it.

Goblet pleat: A rounded, stuffed pleat that stands proud of the heading. It's a decorative choice for tall rooms with real ceiling height, and it wants a fabric with enough body to hold the shape without slumping.

Ripplefold: Snap carriers on a track hold the fabric in a continuous S-wave with no pleats at all. It stacks tightly, it draws easily on wide spans, and it's the heading we reach for on a modern room or a long wall of glass.

Flat panel and rod pocket: The simplest headings. A flat panel on rings suits a stationary decorative panel, and a rod pocket suits a light fabric on a rod nobody plans to draw. Neither is built for daily operation.

Cotton sateen lining: The standard lining. It protects the face fabric from sun, gives the panel body so it hangs straight, and presents a consistent white or ivory face to the street from every window in the house.

Blackout lining: A dense multi-layer lining that stops light through the cloth. It adds real weight, which the rod and brackets have to carry, and it makes a bedroom noticeably darker even though light still comes around the panel edges.

Interlining: A soft flannel layer sewn between face fabric and lining. It adds drape, softens the fold, quiets the room a little and helps at a cold window in January. It's the difference between a nice panel and a luxurious one.

Decorative rod with rings: A visible rod, rings and finials, drawn by hand or with a baton. It puts the hardware into the design of the room. Panel weight decides diameter, material and how many brackets the span needs.

Traverse rod: A mechanical rod with carriers and a cord or baton draw, often concealed behind a heading or a valance. It's what you want when panels get closed every night and the hardware is meant to disappear.

Common Questions

Custom Drapery FAQ

Questions we hear most often from Fortville homeowners considering custom drapery.

Fullness is the ratio of fabric width to the space the panel covers, and it's where the money goes. Two times fullness looks properly gathered on a pinch pleat and is our usual default. Two and a half looks luxurious and uses a quarter more fabric plus the labor to work it. One and a half reads flat and thin, and on a tall opening in the 1849 plat it will look like a mistake from across the room. Because custom drapery runs $300 to $4,000 a window nationally, fullness can move a room's cost more than the fabric choice does. We price two options side by side.
Higher and wider than the opening, almost always. Mounting the rod above the casing and extending it past both sides lets the stacked panels sit on wall rather than on glass, which keeps the whole opening clear when the drapery is open. On the tall openings with high head heights in the historic core there's usually plenty of wall between the trim and the ceiling to work with. In the newer plats at Mt. Vernon North and Beyers Estates the opening often runs close to the ceiling with no casing at all, so the rod goes just under the ceiling line and the stack has to live partly over the glass.
You can order the same fabric and it will very likely come from a different dye lot. Woven goods shift between runs in ground color and in the exact registration of a print, and a half shade of difference is invisible across a room and obvious on the same wall. Our advice is to buy all the yardage at once even if you fabricate in stages, because the bolt is the thing that has to match, not the invoice date. If that isn't possible, we'd plan the second set for a different room. In a Blossom Trace house where Joyner Homes built to your own design, the rooms rarely repeat anyway.
More than a standard cotton lining. West glass on Cove Point or Sandy Point Lane takes direct late sun plus the reflection off the water, which is the hardest fade condition anywhere in Hancock County, and unlined face fabric will go noticeably lighter along the leading edge within a few seasons. A blackout or dim out lining takes that hit and can be replaced without replacing the panel. Interlining adds body and insulation and makes the panel hang beautifully in a room with a January average low of 20.9 degrees. Even so, fading is slowed rather than stopped, since UV is only part of the damage.
A traverse rod draws the panels mechanically with a cord or a wand and gives you a proper overlap in the middle and a return to the wall at each end, which is what actually closes a drapery treatment against light and drafts. A decorative rod with rings looks better and draws by hand, and the panels stop wherever you push them. In a formal room in the Geist facing plats where the drapery closes every evening, the traverse rod does the job. On a stationary panel that frames a window and never moves, rings on a rod with a good finial is the better looking and cheaper answer.
Assume dry cleaning and assume some shrinkage, and plan the hem for it. Lined panels have two fabrics that shrink at different rates, so a wash will pull the lining and the face out of register and the hem will never hang the same. Regular light vacuuming with a brush attachment does most of the maintenance. In a Fortville house through the muggy stretch from late May to September, panels take up humidity and hang slightly longer, then shorten again in winter, and that seasonal movement is normal. We hang panels, let them settle for a few weeks, then come back and finish the hem to the floor.
Fullness is how much fabric goes across the rod compared with the rod's width. At two times fullness, a 100 inch rod carries about 200 inches of cloth. Most of our work lands between two and two and a half times, because that's where a panel looks full rather than skimpy and still stacks reasonably. Sheers often want more, since thin fabric needs the extra to read as fabric at all. Below two times, panels look flat when closed, and no fabric choice rescues that.
A width is one full cut of the fabric across the bolt, usually around 54 inches before seams. Panels are built by joining widths until you reach the fullness the rod needs. So a pair on a wide opening might be two widths per side, or three, and that number is what drives yardage and cost more than anything else. We write widths per panel on the order rather than leaving it as a vague description, so there's no argument later about how full "full" was.
Because the motif has to land at the same height on every panel, and to make that happen the cutter starts each panel at the same point in the repeat. Everything between panels gets trimmed off. A large repeat can add a meaningful chunk of yardage before anyone sews. This isn't waste in the careless sense, it's the cost of a room where the pattern lines up across four windows. We calculate it during the quote so the number doesn't appear later.
Buckram is the stiffener sewn into the top of the panel behind the pleats. It's what makes a heading stand upright and hold a crisp fold instead of flopping over the rings. Weight matters: too light and a heavy fabric drags the heading into a slump, too heavy and a light fabric looks boardy. It's invisible in the finished panel, which is exactly why it gets skipped in cheap work, and why a bargain drapery panel never quite looks right.
Almost always, and how they touch is the decision. A kiss break has the hem just meeting the floor and is the cleanest look for panels that get drawn every day. A slight break, half an inch to an inch of extra length, lets the fabric relax onto the floor and looks softer. A puddle is several inches and belongs on stationary panels in a formal room, not on anything you'll walk past. Floors are rarely level, so we measure the length at three points.
The return is the short section that wraps from the front of the rod back to the wall at each end, closing off the side. The overlap is where the two leading edges cross in the middle when the panels are shut. Skip either one and you get a stripe of light and a sightline into the room. Both need dimensioning at the measure, because the return depth depends on your bracket projection and the overlap depends on the hardware.
In something that will hold the load. A pair of interlined blackout panels on a wide rod is heavy, and it hangs off the wall on a lever arm, which multiplies the pull on the fasteners. We find framing where we can, use blocking where it exists, and use anchors rated for the load where it doesn't. Long rods get extra brackets so the rod can't bow. Drywall anchors chosen by guesswork are the single most common reason drapery ends up on the floor.
Because fabric remembers. Panels arrive folded, and those creases don't fall out on their own. We steam them on site, then dress the folds by hand and tie them loosely for several days so the cloth learns the shape. Untie them after that and each fold sits where it should. Skipping this step is why some drapery hangs with a stiff wave in the wrong place for years. It costs us an hour and it's the difference between finished and installed.
You can get blackout lining, and it's worth knowing what that does and doesn't do. The lining stops light coming through the cloth, so the panel itself goes dark. Light still enters around the panel: over the top, past the return if there isn't one, and through the gap at the center if the overlap is short. The reliable way to darken a bedroom in Fortville is blackout lined panels over a blackout shade with side channels. The drapery handles the softness and the shade handles the edges.
Rings on a decorative rod look better and are drawn by hand or with a baton. They suit panels that mostly stay open and get closed occasionally. A traverse rod has carriers and a mechanical draw, so panels that get closed every single night operate more smoothly and the fabric takes less handling. Ripplefold on a track is the third option and stacks tightest. We ask how often the panels actually move, then pick hardware that matches that answer.
More than most people plan for. Open panels have to go somewhere, and that stack is real: full fullness, multiple widths and a lining add up to a bundle of cloth several inches deep per width. If the rod stops at the edge of the opening, your open panels cover a chunk of the glass all day. We extend the rod past the trim on both sides so the stack lands on wall, which makes the window look larger and lets the daylight in.
Vacuum the face with a brush attachment a few times a year and steam out wrinkles rather than pressing them. When it needs more, use a dry cleaner who handles drapery specifically and takes panels down and rehangs them. Do not wash lined or interlined panels at home. The layers shrink at different rates and the hem goes wavy in a way that can't be fixed. Sun exposure ages fabric faster than dirt does, which is why we spec lining even on panels you'll never close.
Sometimes, and you should assume not. Fabric runs in dye lots, and a bolt woven next year can sit slightly off the one your panels came from. Two panels from different lots on the same wall will show it in daylight. If a second phase is coming, the right move is buying the yardage now, even if the sewing happens later. We'll record the fabric, the lot and the widths on your file either way, which at least gives the reorder a fighting chance.
Layering does more, and it's how most rooms end up. The shade handles the working part: glare, privacy and the edges of the window. The drapery handles softness, height and the way the room feels, and it stops a wall of hard treatments looking like an office. In a Fortville bedroom that combination gives you darkness the drapery alone can't deliver. In a living room, stationary panels beside a solar shade can be the whole job.
Areas We Serve

Custom Drapery Across Fortville

We measure and install in every one of these Fortville neighborhoods. Each has its own page with the build eras, window conditions and mounting notes for that section.

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Contact Information

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Our team prioritizes scheduled measures and service calls, and books in-home measures during business hours.

Office
1417 Commerce Avenue, Indianapolis, IN 46201
Hours
Mon-Fri 8a-6p
Service Area
Fortville, IN and Surrounding Areas

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Call us to set up an in-home measure, or to ask about a treatment that has stopped working. We will talk it through on the phone first.

Call (317) 999-5154
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Serving Fortville and the surrounding area

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