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How to Buy Curtains, Blinds and other Soft Furnishings

New Zealanders take pride in their homes and want their window treatments to be functional as well as attractive. But how do you go about selecting the right curtains, blinds and soft furnishings for your house or office? How do you select the right vendor and manufacturer?

This page aims to provide guidelines on how to choose and buy curtains, blinds and soft furnishings in New Zealand.

1. Ready-mades or made-to-measure?
2. Buy from a larger retailer or a smaller full-service manufacturer?
3. Get you own fabric or buy through the manufacturer?
4. What can I do to help prepare when approaching a vendor?
5. Calculate the fabric requirements for your curtains
6. What can I do with my old curtains after they're replaced?

To get further professional assistance we encourage you to check out the local firms that make and supply soft furnishings in New Zealand.

1)  Buy ready-made curtains or made-to-measure curtains?

Ready-made curtains may be purchased in most larger home furnishing retailers. They are made to a number of specific sizes using a limited set of fabrics, and cannot easily be modified to fit windows of other sizes. There are fewer ready-made blinds available in retail environments, but their advantages and disadvantages are the same as for curtains.

Ready-made blinds and curtains are most suitable for simple and inexpensive furnishings, and where you are fortunate that the sizes of the windows you wish to furnish approximately match the measurements of the ready-made curtains available. Where sizes and designs available match closely with your budget and the room setting, these are often a great low-cost solution.

Custom or made-to-measure curtains and blinds are normally required where you wish to have one or more of the following: (a) exact matches with window dimensions, (b) the fabric of your choice, (c) a design that goes best with the room. They require the manufacturer to measure the window space available, take into consideration such features as the fitting of the curtain rail and window recesses and architraves, etc, and make the individual blind or curtain using the chosen fabric to fit.

2)  Buy from a larger retailer or a smaller full-service manufacturer?

(Note that these descriptions do not always go together in this way -- some retailers can be "smaller" and some full-service manufacturers can be quite large businesses.)

Soft finishing retailers are usually larger businesses and some have several branches around the country. They may be part of larger retailing operations, such as also selling carpets, furniture, or even paint.

They may or may not operate their own workroom (for custom making the products) - if they don't then they are likely to outsource manufacturing to other local specialist businesses. That is to say, they work with you to create the order, measure the products and provide quotes, and then they subcontract the actual manufacture to favoured workrooms. Some people prefer to purchase from such larger retailers, feeling a greater sense of security due to the size and operating longevity of the business.

Small businesses are a special feature of the New Zealand commercial scene, and a large number of soft finishing businesses comprise between one and a handful of workers. Many of them are run by highly skilled owners who have years of experience in the industry and have decided to operate their own business and work to their own business plans and ideas. People who use these firms often like the extra personal service, and the ability to interact directly with the people involved in their purchase.

The choice of which type of business to buy your soft finishings from depends on which you feel more comfortable dealing with. Both may offer great service and products. it is usually best to find out first how their reputations stack up by asking around among your friends.

3)  Get you own fabric or buy through the manufacturer?

For many buyers, this is a very important consideration. An item of soft finishing (curtain or blind etc) involves two special considerations - the fabric it is made from, and the design to which it is made.

Many purchasers want to specify both factors separately - they may want to choose and buy their own fabric, then get a soft finishing manufacturer to create the finished product. Others are happy for the supplier to provide the fabric (from a selection) and the end-product formanufacturing together.

You should always check with the firm you are considering as your supplier as to which approach they prefer. Some retailers will be keen for you to buy fabric from them in one contract; in fact some of them will offer free making with fabric purchase (although this usually means the fabric price is higher than normal to cover the manufacturing cost).

Some manufacturers well with whatever fabric you provide. They may be happy to help you buy your fabric from third parties, and they may be able to assist by obtaining trade prices from wholesalers, enabling them to give you a discount.

And some manufacturers may not want to work with certain fabrics. They may advise as to which fabrics that they're prepared to work with - not generally for cost reasons but rather because they have experienced manufacturing difficulties with some fabrics in the past.

4)  What can I do to help prepare when approaching a vendor?

It always helps a supplier to have an initial rough idea of both the size of the contract (is it one curtain, one room, one complete house?) and of the approximate measurements of the windows and other furnishings involved. Assuming you may be wanting an initial estimate of the project cost, having these measurements available can speed up the process enormously. The supplier may also react more warmly to your approach if they know you are someone who has "done their homework" already.

We have prepared some pages on this website that may help you understand a little more about soft furnishings including curtain and blind designs, the terminology used etc. Check out our information pages so you will be more relaxed talking about the project with suppliers. For general information on curtains and blinds, see also the pages for Curtains, Blinds and Soft Furnishings.

Although it is not always possible at an early stage, if you have a good idea as to the type of fabric and treatment you want then jot them down on your list of references to give to supplier. To this end, it always helps if you have looked around friends' houses and picked up some ideas on what will work and what you would like.

To get further professional assistance we encourage you to check out the local firms that make curtains and other soft furnishings in New Zealand.

5)  Calculate the fabric requirements for your curtains

We've come across a very good website that provides boxes to fill in with your specific window measurements and type of curtain required, and spits out a good estimate of the amount of fabric required. This could help a lot when preparing to talk to a vendor or manufacturer in order to get a more accurate and useful quotation.
To use the tool, click on this link.

6)  What can I do with my surplus curtains?

(From Christchurch Press At Home supplement, 7th February 2007)

Christchurch's Community Energy Action (CEA) wants more old curtains for its Curtain Bank. CEA arranges for them to go to a home where they will make a real difference to the quality of life. For many Christchurch homes last year the loss of privacy and heat caused by a lack of curtains was a reality, had it not been for the Curtain Bank, CEA says.

A tremendous public response during 2006 meant a record number of low-income households received curtains during one of the coldest winters in a long time. CEA encourages people to again make a difference this year by donating surplus curtains, in reasonable condition, to its office at 198 Armagh Streert, or phone (03) 363-9579.

[Do you know of any other organisations that operate similar services or recycle curtains or blinds?
Please email us to let us know.]