Custom Drapery

McCordsville Custom Drapery

Fabric, fullness and a stack that lands on the wall

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Quick Answer

A short orientation before the detail: this product gets measured in your home, built to those sizes, and installed once it arrives. The answers here cover selection, operation, care and what the warranty does and doesn't include.

  • Service: Custom Drapery for McCordsville homeowners
  • Service area: McCordsville, IN and surrounding areas
    • A restring, a new cord lock, a tilt mechanism or a dead motor battery gets handled far faster than a new order, because nothing has to be built. New custom work runs on the factory's two to five week clock.
  • Insured and bonded
  • Serving McCordsville, IN since 2008
Custom Drapery Services

Expert Custom Drapery for McCordsville Homes

Drapery does two things no hard treatment can: it softens a room acoustically, and it takes its stack onto the wall instead of onto the glass. Both matter in McCordsville. The two story foyer and great room openings that came with the 2000 to 2015 stock are tall, hard surfaced and echo, and the Geist Woods Estates and Bay Creek elevations were built with more glass than wall. It's also the one product that suits a renter: McCord Square put 205 apartments into The Jackson and The Lucas in a town that's otherwise 84.7 percent owner occupied, and a rod and a pair of panels come off the wall and move with you.

Yardage is where the surprises live. A pinch pleat panel at two and a half times fullness uses far more fabric than the window is wide, and that fullness is what separates custom drapery from a store bought panel that hangs flat. Fabric also runs in dye lots, so a third panel ordered a year later won't match the two beside it. Stack back is the other cost: a closed pair parks roughly a third of its own width at each side, so a rod sized to the opening alone leaves the panels covering glass all day. National installed pricing runs roughly $300 to $4,000 a window, and lead time is two to five weeks.

When to Call

Signs You Need Custom Drapery

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

Panels hang stiff with a crease in the wrong place

Open panels cover a third of the glass

Ready made lengths pool by accident on one wall

Closed drapery still lets a stripe of light through

New panels won't clear the shade cassette behind them

Sun has faded the leading edge of a panel

Voices carry and ring in a room with bare glass

Ready-made panels stop short of the floor

The fabric you loved has been discontinued since

Cooking smells have settled into the living room panels

Our Process

How McCordsville Window Treatments Handles Custom Drapery

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

1

Floor checked for level

2

Widths per panel calculated

3

Folds dressed and tied to train

4

Stationary or drawing panels decided

5

Full room yardage held in one lot

Real Project Photos

Custom Drapery in McCordsville

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

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

What Custom Drapery Includes

Every McCordsville 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 McCordsville

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 McCordsville, 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 McCordsville homeowners considering custom drapery.

Two to two and a half times the rod width for a pleated panel, and at least twice for a ripple fold. Below that the panel reads as a flat sheet and the folds collapse when it's drawn back, which is the single clearest visual difference between custom work and a packaged panel. Sheers can go to three times because the fabric is light and the extra body is the point. Where we pull back is on very heavy fabric in a small room, because a two and a half times panel in a heavy weave stacks so deep that it swallows a wall in a 1,747 square foot house.
Plan on the closed panel occupying about a third of its own width when drawn back, which means a pair on a 72 inch opening wants roughly 12 to 15 inches of clear wall on each side. Where that wall exists, run the rod past the opening so the panels clear the glass entirely. Where it does not, which is common on the tightly spaced openings in the 1990s sections here, we either accept some glass coverage or use a stationary panel on one side only. Height matters too: mounting the rod near the ceiling makes a nine foot room read taller and costs nothing but length.
Faster than the same fabric would elsewhere in McCordsville, and silk fastest of all. Rear elevations on W Nautica Blvd and Bayfront Shores face broadly west and northwest into light reflected off open water, which is the hardest exposure in the town. The National Fenestration Rating Council attributes roughly 40 to 60 percent of fading to ultraviolet, so a lining slows the damage without preventing it. Practical steps are a good lining, an interlining if the fabric is precious, and a solar shade behind the panels to take the direct load. Avoid a saturated dye on that exposure if longevity matters.
That's the main argument for it in that building. Those two buildings carry 205 rental units between them, and a hard treatment there means brackets driven into a shallow wall build up that stays behind when you go. Drapery comes down as panels and a rod, leaves a few anchor holes to fill, and rehangs somewhere else if the next window is a similar height. Order the length for a taller ceiling than you have and hem it generously, so the panels can be let down rather than pieced when they move.
Rings for anything you want to look at, traverse for anything you want to work hard. A decorative rod with rings and a finial is the better looking option and it needs a hand to draw it, which is fine for panels you move once a day. A traverse rod hides the mechanism behind the heading and draws smoothly with a cord or a wand, with a proper overlap at the center so the two panels meet without a light line between them. On a wide great room opening in a Geist side house, a motorized traverse rod is often the only thing that gets used at all.
The published national range is roughly $300 to $4,000 a window, and the spread is almost entirely fabric. Labor, lining and hardware sit in a fairly narrow band, then a plain lined cotton and a woven silk produce completely different totals on the very same window, because fullness multiplies whatever the yard costs. Nothing local is published for Hancock County. The practical way through is to pick the room that matters, spend the fabric budget there, and use a simple lined panel elsewhere. Indiana's Home Improvement Contract Act, IC 24-5-11, puts the scope and the total price in writing on anything over $150.
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 McCordsville 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 McCordsville 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 McCordsville

We measure and install in every one of these McCordsville 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
McCordsville, 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
Service area

Serving McCordsville and the surrounding area

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