DIY Inexpensive Curtain Rods

As I was making great headway with stenciling the curtain panels for my patio, I started to give some real thought as to how I was going to hang these panels.  Our screened-in patio is about 15 ft long by 14 ft. wide, which would require lengthy drapery rods.  Just for kicks, I began searching the internet for "outdoor drapery rods".  I found several sites that offered them at a hefty price, which I knew I wasn't about to pay. So, after talking this over with my hubby, we decided to head to Home Depot to look at the aluminum conduit.

Aluminum conduit comes in 10 ft. lengths, and is extremely inexpensive.  It comes in varying diameters, 1/2" and 3/4 inch to name a couple.  We opted for the 3/4" diameter.  To me it just looked more substantial, and I wanted a heavier rod that would hold the panels without problem.

Since 10 feet in length wouldn't be sufficient for one wall, we bought (2) 10 ft length pieces for each wall, of which we only had 3 walls.  We were able to get a sales associate to cut the rods to the length that we wanted them.  This is really helpful as my SUV isn't long enough for anything over 9 ft. long.  You might think we opted to get two 7 ft. long pieces for the 14 ft. wall, and 7.5 ft. long pieces for the 15 ft long wall, but we didn't.  Here's the reason, we knew we would need to use a coupling to join the two pieces together to create one rod, and we also knew that we were going to put adjustable rod brackets at the ends and one in the center.  I was only able to find rod brackets at Home Depot that were for rods up to 3/4" in diameter. With the rod already 3/4" in diameter, the coupling would have made the rod too big in diameter to fit in the bracket.  So we decided to place the couplings off centered from the brackets that were on center with the wall.

We also purchased at Home Depot three couplings, also 3/4" in diameter.

 I can't remember exactly how much they cost, but they weren't super cheap.  I'm thinking with all the conduit, couplings and the brackets we spent a little over $60.

We also bought adjustable rod brackets in a black finish, that accommodates rods up to 3/4".  These came 2 to a package and were $5/a piece.  I needed 9 brackets so I purchased 5 packages.  We also bought some Satin Black Krylon Spray Paint, 2-3 cans, as I wanted them to have a black finish.

If you have a pipe cutter, it will help immensely, as my hubby didn't have the sales associate at Home Depot cut the conduit to the exact length, as we thought we should first get the brackets up where we wanted them and then measure.  So, he used his little pipe cutter to cut the conduit to the exact length he wanted.  We placed the brackets at each end and then also in the center of the wall.  On the corners, we chose to place one of the brackets all the way to the end, and then on the adjoining side, we placed the bracket several inches in from the corner so to ensure that the curtains would overlap in a sense.

My hubby sprayed paint all the pieces, conduit, and couplings.  Once dry, we joined the two pieces together with the coupling (which again is slightly off center from the center bracket), and placed them into the brackets.  Here's a picture of how the coupling is slightly off center from the center bracket.

Here's the first rod up with the curtain panels.

And here's what the corners looked like with the rods and curtains hung

Doesn't it look like the curtains overlap each other.  I am so happy with the outcome, and it just feels like I brought the indoors outside!