Hack a Ceiling Track for Shower Curtain

AFTER_curtaintrack-703105

Materials: One pack (24 pieces) IKEA Dignitet hook & clamp, 12 pieces IKEA stainless steel cabinet escutcheon 15cm x 2.5cm, aluminum i-beam ceiling track (2 meter length), 12 roller hooks for i-beam track, 3 screw-mounts to attach i-beam track to ceiling, shower curtain and clear-plastic curtain rings

Description: The old shower curtain rod (see the BEFORE photo) in my little 2m x 2m bathroom ran across the middle of the room and made it FEEL even smaller! It was too tempting to hang towels on the rod adding to the visual clutter. Plus, being over 2m tall, I always had to duck down getting in and out which was a pain.

The solution was to buy a two meter length of aluminum I-beam curtain track and mount that to the ceiling. It’s very flexible so I curved the ends in toward the shower stall to help keep water from leaking around the sides of the curtain.

BEFORE_curtainrod-709844
before

DETAIL_curtaintrack-706489

To bring the shower curtain down so that its bottom edge was inside the tub, I needed some extended hangers. Lots of ways to do that. I used 12 IKEA Dignitet curtain hangers — they have a hook on one end and a strong spring clamp on the other end — to attach the 15cm IKEA stainless steel escutcheons to the original clear-plastic curtain rings. The IKEA escutcheons were actually designed for IKEA kitchen cabinets and drawers. They were the perfect length for my project and they already had holes drilled at each end where I was able to attach the hooks. And being stainless steel they won’t rust!

It’s amazing how this small change makes the tiny room feel open and bigger.

~ G.W.Martin, Oakland, California