Four to six inches above the frame. That is the answer everyone gives, and it is not wrong so much as it is answering a different question. It tells you where a rod usually goes. It does not tell you where the top of your curtain will end up, whether the wall you are drilling into has room for the hardware you bought, or what happens to the hem once you raise the rod.
All three are settled earlier, and somewhere else. The strip of wall between the top of a window and the ceiling is a fixed amount of space, and several things spend it before you get there. One brand publishes exactly how much its hardware needs. One publishes how much height its hooks give back. One publishes neither. So the real question is not how high to hang curtains, but how much of that wall is still yours by the time you are on the ladder. It is one step in measuring, hanging and installing a window, and it is the step that has to happen before the order, not after.
The wall above your window is already spoken for
Start with the only installation clearance in this whole category that a brand actually prints. Two Pages publishes, on its Lark motorised track, a required mounting clearance of at least 4 inches for a single track and at least 7 7/8 inches for a double. That is not a recommendation about proportion. It is the space the mechanism physically occupies above the opening, written by the company that makes it.
Rule of thumb
gap to the ceiling, not gap above the frame
Set the height from the ceiling down
Decide the rod height by how much wall you leave above the curtain, not by how much you leave below it. Measure the gap from the ceiling, and keep that gap the same on every window in the room.
Frames sit at different heights in the same room, so a fixed distance above each frame puts every rod at a different height and the wall reads as a jumble. The eye has no way to check a distance above a frame it cannot see behind the fabric, but it reads the line between curtain top and ceiling instantly, because the ceiling is the one straight edge that runs past every window in the room.
rod height less hook less floor gap
Fix the height before you order the length
Settle where the rod goes first, then subtract downwards to get the drop you order: rod height, minus the height of the hook or ring, minus the gap you want at the floor.
The order runs one way only. A drop can be ordered to any height you choose, but once it is made, moving the rod moves the hem by the same amount, and fabric cannot be added back at the bottom. Doing the subtraction before you order is the difference between a hem that lands where you meant it to and a hem that lands wherever the rod happened to go.
Measurable geometry rather than a product claim. Hold it against your own window before you trust it.
Put that number against the wall you are working with. A double track asking for 7 7/8 inches wants roughly the same slice of wall that the four-to-six-inch convention thought it was handing out freely. On a window with a foot of wall above it, the choice is already made for you: the hardware goes where it fits, and the proportion is whatever is left over. On a window with four inches, a double track is not a height decision at all, it is a different product.
Manual rods ask for less, but they are not free either, and the same listing is a reminder of why: Two Pages notes that the track length you order includes 4 inches added by the hooks once they are rotated horizontally. Hardware has dimensions. Whatever you are mounting, the first measurement is not the frame, it is the gap.
Whether the brackets stay in the wall once they are up is a separate question, decided by what is behind the plaster and how much the finished curtain weighs. This page assumes they will hold, and asks only where to put them.
Every brand sells you a drop, not a height
Here is what the three brands have in common, and it matters more than where they differ. None of them sells you a hanging height. They sell you a drop, a finished length of cloth, and they all publish some version of how precise that length will be.
Half Price Drapes sells its Performance Linen Hotel Blackout panel in a single 100 inch width and four fixed lengths, 84, 96, 108 and 120 inches, priced by the rung at 86.50, 87.50, 89.00 and 98.99 dollars. Two Pages makes custom panels to a length range of 20 to 300 inches and states that lengths vary by 1 inch because the work is done by hand. Neutral Curtains publishes a 0.4 inch tolerance on the finished size of its Belgian linen panels. A ladder with 12 inch gaps and two hand-work tolerances do the same job here: they say how precisely the bottom of the curtain can be placed.
None of them says anything about the top.
Between the window you measure and the size that gets made
| Listing | Taken off the width | Variance allowed after that |
|---|---|---|
| Two PagesCustom Curtains for Sliding Glass Doors | not published | lengths vary by 1 in (handcraft) |
| Neutral Curtains100% Belgian Flax Linen Curtains & Drapes Pleated | not published | 0.4 in on the finished size |
| Neutral CurtainsLily Linen Curtains & Drapes Ripple Fold with Track | not published | 0.4 in tolerance on the finished size (manual measurement) |
0 of these 3 listings publish a width deduction, and 3 publish a variance on the finished size. The two are separate numbers and they run in the same direction. Nothing here is averaged, totalled or borrowed from a neighbouring listing.
Taken from the official Half Price Drapes, Neutral Curtains, Two Pages product pages on 2026-09-12. We measure nothing ourselves, so every percentage here is the figure the brand prints.
This is where rod height stops being a decision about the wall. Raise a bracket four inches after the curtains are made and the hem rises four inches with it, which spends a 0.4 inch tolerance ten times over. A hem that skims the floor gains a line of daylight under it, and the eye reads that as the wrong size rather than as a taller window. On the ready-made ladder the only way back is the next rung up, a foot higher, which puddles on the boards.
The order of operations is therefore fixed, and it runs the opposite way to how most people do it. Height first, then hook, then drop, then the gap you want at the floor. Which drop that lands you on is a question in itself, and ready-made lengths are rungs rather than measurements.
Easy to get wrong
| The habit | What it costs | Instead |
|---|---|---|
| Raising the rod after the curtains are made The curtains go up, the window looks squat, so the brackets move up four inches to fix it. | The hem lifts by exactly the same four inches. A curtain that brushed the floor now floats above it, which reads as the wrong size rather than as a taller window, and nothing at the bottom can be let out. | Decide the height first and order the drop to it. If the panels already exist, buy the height back at the top instead: a deeper header, a ring, or a hook with a published adjustment range, so the rod moves and the hem stays. |
Common failure modes and their fix. No product data on this card.
In the room
Listed at $86.50. ready-made panel, fixed 100 in width, priced by length: 84L $86.50 / 96L $87.50 / 108L $89.00 / 120L $98.99; no width choice
Catalogue photo from Half Price Drapes, retrieved 2026-08-22.
The hook is the last adjustment you get, and one brand in three publishes it
Between the rod and the top of the fabric sits a hook, and the hook has a height. That height is the offset between where you drilled and where the cloth actually starts, which makes it the single number that turns a rod position into a hanging height. Three brands, three answers, and they are not the same kind of answer.
Neutral Curtains publishes both figures for its adjustable pin hooks: they stand 3 1/2 inches tall and carry a ratchet that allows height adjustment within a 3 inch range. The brand is equally specific about the limits, stating the hooks work with pinch, tailor and triple pleated headers and that they are not suitable for Flat Hook and Tape Pleat headers, and that they fit ring eyelets larger than 3/16 inch. Twelve dollars for a pack of ten.
In the room
Listed at $12.00. single price, one pack of 10 pin hooks
Catalogue photo from Neutral Curtains, retrieved 2026-09-02.
Two Pages publishes a height for its S-shaped metal pin hooks, 1 1/8 inches, with no adjustment mentioned, for French, Triple French, Goblet and Inverted Box Pleated headers, attaching to traverse rods and rods with eyelet rings. Twenty dollars for a pack of 32.
The two listings
Height: 1 1/8 in
Height: 3 1/2 in
Taken from the official Neutral Curtains, Two Pages product pages on 2026-09-12. We measure nothing ourselves, so every percentage here is the figure the brand prints.
In the room
Listed at $20.00. single price, one pack of 32 pin hooks
Catalogue photo from Two Pages, retrieved 2026-09-02.
Half Price Drapes publishes a price, a count of 22 hooks per bag at 4.99 dollars, and the fact that they suit pleated and flat panels. It does not publish a height, and we are not estimating one. The bag is also final sale. Three pack sizes means those three prices are not a ranking of anything: what separates the hooks here is what each brand is willing to tell you about the height.
What gets spent on the wall above the window
clearance the hardware asks for above the opening · 4 in for a single track, 7 7/8 in for a double track
how tall the hook itself stands · published as a bare height on the listing; 3 in of height adjustment is left after the curtain is made
how tall the hook itself stands · published as a bare height on the listing
how tall the hook itself stands · this listing does not publish the figure, and none is being estimated here
Every inch on this scale comes off the same strip of wall between the frame and the ceiling, and all of it is spent before the rod goes up. 1 of these 4 listings publishes a figure you can still move once the curtain is made, and 1 does not publish its figure at all.
Taken from the official Half Price Drapes, Neutral Curtains, Two Pages product pages on 2026-09-12. We measure nothing ourselves, so every percentage here is the figure the brand prints.
Read those three lines as heights rather than as products and the picture changes. A 3 inch ratchet covers the entire distance between hanging four inches above a frame and hanging seven above it, so on a compatible header that argument stays open after delivery. A fixed 1 1/8 inch hook closes it: the top of the cloth is locked to the rod, and the only way to lift the curtain is to move the brackets, which moves the hem with them. And where no height is published at all, the top of the fabric cannot be placed until the parcel is open.
That is the catalogue trap here. A listing that says hooks included has told you nothing about the top of your curtain, and the small parts that join panel to rod are where the number lives.
Read it on the merchant’s page
Neutral Curtains · Adjustable Pin Hooks (Pack of 10)
Listed at $12.00
What that covers: single price, one pack of 10 pin hooks
See it at Neutral CurtainsAffiliate link, and worth saying plainly: we may be paid a commission if you buy through it, it costs you nothing extra, and Neutral Curtains pricing is untouched. What you see here is a reading taken on 2026-09-12; check the listing itself before you order. That picture belongs to Neutral Curtains and was taken from the catalogue on 2026-09-02.
Measuring down from the ceiling changes the answer
Frames sit at different heights in the same house. Measure four to six inches above each of them and you get a different rod height in every room, which is why the rule produces rooms that look almost right. Measuring down from the ceiling produces a line instead, and a line is something the eye can check, because the ceiling is the one straight edge that runs past every window in the room.
Now do the arithmetic before you order, not after. Say the ceiling is 108 inches up and you want the rod close to it, with the curtain brushing the floor. The drop you need is over 100 inches once you have taken off the hook height and the gap at the bottom. On the ready-made ladder that is the 108 inch rung or nothing, since that range stops at 120. In a configurator that accepts 20 to 300 inches of length, it is simply a number you type.
Which rod or track goes up there is its own decision, and rods, brackets and tracks have their own guide. That division has nothing to do with quality. Ready-made sells height in 12 inch steps; made-to-measure sells the height you chose and hands back a 1 inch variance at Two Pages or 0.4 inch at Neutral. Either can be right, but only one of them follows a rod you have decided to put near the ceiling.
Worth doing
Tape the line before you drill
Run a strip of low-tack painter's tape across the wall at the height you are considering, step back to the doorway, and look at it from where you actually stand in the room. Move the tape, look again, then drill.
A height that looks right from two feet away on a stepladder often looks wrong from the sofa, and the gap between two candidate heights is invisible on a tape measure but obvious on a wall. The tape costs nothing, leaves no holes, and turns an abstract number into the only view that matters, which is the one you will live with.
A practical step, not a product claim. Nothing here depends on which brand you buy.
In the room
Listed at $59.99. starting price in the configurator, per panel, on the Liz fabric; only three fabric variants (Liz $59.99, Jawara $79.99, Patti $79.99)…
Catalogue photo from Two Pages, retrieved 2026-08-22.
What the listings will not tell you about the top
The silences on this subject are specific, and they all sit at the same end of the curtain. Half Price Drapes does not publish a hook height. Neutral Curtains names a track in the title of its Lily ripple fold panel and then publishes nothing about it: no length, no material, no load capacity, nothing about whether the track is in the base price or in the add-ons. Two Pages does not publish a stack back for its custom panels, and neither does Half Price Drapes for the Performance Linen.
What these listings do not tell you
- Two Pages Lark Motorized Curtain Tracks: weight gsm, noise level, motor brand
- Two Pages Patti Premium 100% Belgian Flax Linen Curtain Pleated: price, availability
- Two Pages Custom Curtains for Sliding Glass Doors: stack back, max panel weight
- Neutral Curtains Lily Linen Curtains & Drapes Ripple Fold with Track: track included, size envelope, stack back, weight capacity lb
- Half Price Drapes Performance Linen Hotel Blackout Curtain (Extra Wide): weight gsm, stack back
- Half Price Drapes Heavy Duty Drapery Pin Hooks (22 per bag): height in
Missing from the product page, so missing here too. A brand that prints the number is doing you a favour worth counting.
Taken from the official Half Price Drapes, Neutral Curtains, Two Pages product pages on 2026-09-12. We measure nothing ourselves, so every percentage here is the figure the brand prints.
In the room
Listed at $4.99. single price, one bag of 22 pin hooks; final sale, no returns
Catalogue photo from Half Price Drapes, retrieved 2026-09-02.
None of that is dishonest, and none of it changes which product is good. It changes the order of the work. Where the top of the curtain cannot be calculated from the listing, the hardware goes up after the panels arrive: you hold the height open until you can measure the hook in your hand against the drop in the parcel.
The number they do give generously is at the bottom: a 1.5 inch bottom hem at Two Pages, 3 to 3.5 inches on the Neutral Lily. That hem is the part of the drop that does not drape, and on a floor that is not level it is the part you look at when you decide whether the height was right.
Read it on the merchant’s page
Half Price Drapes · Performance Linen Hotel Blackout Curtain (Extra Wide)
Listed at $86.50
What that covers: ready-made panel, fixed 100 in width, priced by length: 84L $86.50 / 96L $87.50 / 108L $89.00 / 120L $98.99; no width choice
See the size options at Half Price DrapesAffiliate link, and worth saying plainly: we may be paid a commission if you buy through it, it costs you nothing extra, and Half Price Drapes pricing is untouched. What you see here is a reading taken on 2026-09-12; check the listing itself before you order. The shot beside it is catalogue work by Half Price Drapes, pulled 2026-08-22.
Two questions that settle how high to hang curtains
All of it reduces to a check you can run on any product page in a minute.
Ask how tall the hook is. A published number lets you place the top of the curtain before you drill; a published adjustment range keeps the height negotiable after delivery, within that range and on the headers the brand names; nothing published means the hardware goes up last.
Then ask how much the finished length can vary. A tolerance of 0.4 or 1 inch tells you how much slack to leave at the floor, and a ladder of fixed lengths tells you the answer has already been rounded for you, by up to 12 inches.
Two numbers, usually printed, and between them they decide whether the height you chose is still available when the curtains arrive.
A different arrangement
One height for the whole room
Pick a single rod height for every window in a room, set by the window with the least wall above it, and run all the rods on that one invisible line, even where a window could take more.
Windows in one room are rarely aligned, and dressing each one to its own frame multiplies the misalignment by putting the curtain tops at different heights too. One line laid across all of them gives the room a horizontal it did not have, and the mismatched frames disappear behind it. It is the cheapest way to make an ordinary room look deliberately designed.
This is a layout idea rather than a purchase. The panels you have will do it.
Questions people ask about curtain height
How high above the window should a curtain rod go? Four to six inches above the frame is the convention. Check the wall first: Two Pages requires at least 7 7/8 inches of clearance for a double track, so the hardware can decide before the rule does.
Can I raise the rod after the curtains are up? Yes, and the hem rises by exactly the same amount. The only published way to recover it is an adjustable hook, and Neutral Curtains rates its ratchet at 3 inches.
Do curtain hooks change the hanging height? They set it. Neutral publishes 3 1/2 inches with 3 inches of adjustment, Two Pages publishes a fixed 1 1/8 inches, and Half Price Drapes publishes no height at all.
What if I want the rod at the ceiling? Then you need the drop. Two Pages makes lengths from 20 to 300 inches to order, while the Half Price Drapes ready-made ladder stops at 120.