We have a fairly old house and the previous owners installed a curtain track rail in both our bay windows. This was great as they left the hooks that fitted it behind. All has been well until that is in recent years the now very old hooks have started to break and we have fewer and fewer hooks to hang the curtains up with resulting in badly hung and difficult to close curtains.
Modern hooks would not fit around the rather wide curtain rail and with fewer hooks, the curtains were hanging on about half the number they really needed.
The obvious solution was to replace the entire rail with a modern one that would take modern hook sizes. However, that is expensive and not something we really want to invest in at this point in time.
We also found curtain rings that would go around the rail but as they were solid circles it would have meant taking down and refitting the entire rail, which is time-consuming and again was not something we wanted to do at this time.
So we needed a solution that was effective, looked good and was reasonably easy to fit. I knew there must be something out there.
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Eventually, I found these solid, well made and robust open and close curtain rings that actually open and close so you can easily fit them around the track or curtain pole.
They are brilliant as they can be used all the way along a curtain track or pole. You simply clip the ring around the pole or track with the small hole hanging down.
You attach the small white curtain clips to the curtains first in the usual way, then easily hang the curtains by slipping the white hooks through the curtain ring's smaller hole.
The result is a sturdy fix and smooth closing curtains. I do find the more we use the better the fit of the curtains, so we space them every few inches, especially for heavy curtains.
They are also useful if an existing curtain ring has broken and then instead of taking the whole pole down you can simply clip this over the pole and refit the curtain.
Some open and close curtain rings have a clip attached instead of the smaller hole so you can simply clip the curtains onto it. It all depends on what you need and prefer.
We went for a lovely antique bronze colour but they do come in different colours to fit most decor. I have seen them in bronze, silver, gold, black and white.
These open and close curtain rings can also be used on tab top curtains. I do not think they are designed for this purpose but I tried them and they do the job just fine! Simply clip them around the fabric tab and then close them around the pole or track. So this is ideal if you love a design or colour of a tab top curtain but do not want, or are not able to take down the pole to fit them across it.
We looked for curtain rings open and close that are well made and very sturdy as curtains can be heavy. When they are pulled back and forth to open and close several times a day it can put stress on the rings. Also, hanging curtains can be hard work and not something I want to be doing for repairing broken rings every few months!
We discounted curtain rings made of plastic or that looked weak and flimsy as we would prefer to buy good quality that will last, rather than very cheap ones that need replacing every few months.
You do need to apply a decent amount of pressure on each ring to open and close it but the fit is good and none of them have opened on their own.
They slide back and forth on the rail very well and smoothly and look much better than the old curtain track hooks that were originally there.
