Spent this afternoon working on this idea of a shade pull. I went to JoAnns for ideas, cord for the pull, something to reinforce the hole. Just putting a hole through the vinyl near the edge of the hem with the slat did not work. Tried white duct tape on the reverse side of the hole before punching, didn't like the way the shadow of the duct tape shown through for one, plus it may work if two pieces were used - one on the back, one on the front. But I thought it looked tacky. What about the glue gun? If I were to smear a small circle of hot glue around the hole, that should help resist tearing shouldn't it? or too messy? I couldn't find the type of cord I was looking for either. Chose some thin white cord used in upholstery and then the fabric cutter at JoAnns brought me some regular cord used for sewing Roman shades, in red. Both frayed really badly when I tried to thread the ends through the hole and through the pull. I think what I need is more like heavy string? If I replace the plastic slat with a thin piece of wood, could I then push a sharp tack through it and secure it on the backside somehow? I'm thinking along the lines of those buttons or pins that come in two pieces, one is pushed on the back to hold it. Maybe a tiny grommet is the way the go afterall. I put everything away until I come up with something.

I would never have thought of Big Lots! I'll check next time I go grocery shopping next door to the Big Lots by me. I think my living room is already leaning a little "cold"/modern for the unpainted DIY version of those curtain rods -- I know you can paint them black but then when you factor in decent paint and the time/trouble to paint them it hardly seems worth what I might save. I'm going to keep the how-to handy though for hanging curtains in the laundry room because the unpainted version would be fine there. The price at Country Curtains seems a little high? So far IKEA seems to have the best price (as long as the store price is the same as the website price) that I've checked. Big Lots might beat them out though. That place is crazy cheap.

You could also hang the curtains on rings that attach with metal clasps. That makes them easy to remove to clean. Most draperies and curtain rods have "returns" on the sides. You could run your blackout curtains on rods underneath the outer ones. Putting them all on rings allows for them to be pulled to the side and opened. A curtain that has a rod pocket and is threaded onto a rod is not able to slide open. You might be able to slide them back with some effort, but that is awkward. I recently put my grand daughter's curtain on rings so that it could be opened. Her mother and other grandmother are more attuned to closing themselves and her up into the house. They never cared nor questioned that the curtains were permanently closed. That was back in September and the curtains are still open as I left them. The curtain is a very nice custom made one that I made. It was hung on a temporary basis that never got addressed for two years until I put it on rings. She is only three years old and I don't think she even knew that there was a window there. Now there is a little more than just an overhead light in the room. Now there is some real daylight. If you use separate blackout curtains it leaves your outer layer of curtains to be changed when you feel you need something different and you still have your blackouts. Have you looked at buying blackout lining at Joanns? Do you sew? You could do one solid panel across the window, as opposed to one on each side, and just have it slide to one side when you wanted it opened. I used to do draperies and they used to sell one by RocLon that worked quite well. That was some time ago and things may have changed.

It often depends on the color of the drapes and IMO silver rods and silver color grommets work fine so maybe show us what the drapes are you are looking for.