DIY Outdoor Curtains and Screened Porch for Under $100
How to protect your porch from bugs using this quick and cheap solution for DIY outdoor curtains.
If you’ve been following along on my Instagram Stories, you probably already saw this post coming.
I love it when a light bulb moment ends up working out even better than you could have imagined! For the past year, we’ve slowly been working on sprucing up our back porch.
This is where we left off a few months ago after limewashing the brick and painting the doors this winter:
Curtains as a Screen Porch Alternative
One thing we always battled were the bugs in the summer, especially at night. But we didn’t want to go through the expense and labor of adding screens because we really loved having the space feel open and be a part of the backyard.
I was in IKEA a couple of weeks ago though and discovered these mosquito net curtains for $5 per pair. And it hit me… outdoor curtain screens!
Supplies
(Some affiliate links are provided.)
The grand total came to under $100 for 6, roughly $16 each.
Steps
Step 1 – Spray Mosquito Net With ScotchGard
I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t yellow and turn gross in the rain and sun, so it was worth spending an extra $10 on two bottles of Scotchgard Heavy Duty Water Shield and spraying them down to make them weather-proof.
Fingers crossed it works! But considering it’s designed to protect fabrics outdoors, I’m really optimistic on this one.
Step 2 – Hang Tension Rods With Command Hooks
I picked up 6 tension rods at Walmart for about $6 each, and Robert and I hung them up as high as we could, close to our porch ceiling, using Command hooks. It was super quick and causes no damage at all, so if we ever decide to take them down, we won’t have to worry about any screw holes to patch.
I cannot believe how elegant and luxurious our back porch looks now! We have the freedom to open and close them as we need to so that as the bugs start swarming onto our porch in the evenings, we can just close them.
Step 3 – (optional) Secure Panels
If you didn’t want them blowing in the breeze, you could even loop ties to the corners of the panels to secure around your porch posts. Or you can sew fishing weights into the bottom curtain hems. (That’s a trick some brides use to keep veils from blowing too much in the wind at outdoor weddings.)
Our porch looks bigger now! I’ll be sharing more of this space with all of our decorating sources tomorrow, but I had to share this trick with y’all because it’s seriously one of my favorites ever.
Have you used any other great money-saving ideas in your outdoor spaces? Or have solutions for combatting the creepy crawlies? I’m convinced the state bird of South Carolina is really the mosquito.
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Hi. Just wondering how you keep the bugs from getting in between the first and above the rods? We have a 100-year old farmhouse and the porch roof is slanted. I did just order the curtains (picking up in store tomorrow). I’m only doing the side of our wrap around porch. Thanks for the idea.
Hi! I am certainly not able to say we are bug free. However, there is nothing I do particular to keep the bugs from getting up there and yet it does not seem to be a problem. I hope you enjoy the look for your porch as much as we do. 🙂
Shawnie, please post photos when you get them up. Our deck roof is slanted too and I’m not sure how to hang mine to make them look right.
This idea is a lovely solution to an ugly bug problem! I’d like to try it under our deck on the patio. Has anyone done something like this?
HI!! It certainly helps to reduce the bugs on the porch.
Sorry to get off subject, but please, what color is the porch ceiling?
It’s Benjamin Moore Palladian Blue 🙂 We tested SO many blues before finding the “winner”
What is the longest length of your curtain rods? We’re trying to do this exact project at our house in NJ. Our back porch is 12 feet deep by 27 feet wide. Your porch looks amazing!!!! Now that you’ve had it up for a year, how did the curtains hold up and did they help blocking out the mosquitos?
Hi Michelle. We used the space between the posts to decide how to set our curtain rods. Luckily for us, the distance between each post allowed the fit of two sheer curtains perfectly. The space is best guesstimated at 5′. Here is a link to the rod used. https://rstyle.me/n/c5zm2zb5ky7
When the curtains are closed, does it reduce the rain that blows in or would I need to use something heavier-duty? The blowing rain is what I’m wanting to reduce so we can use the entire deck.
No, you would need a heavy duty fabric for that, unfortunately.