Pelmets that make the curtain work.

Picture the gap between the top of your curtain track and the ceiling. On a typical wall-fixed track that gap is 100 to 300mm high and runs the full width of the window. On a cold night, warm air from the heater collects along the ceiling, finds that gap, and falls straight down the back of the curtain onto the glass. It cools, drops to the floor, and returns to the room as a cold draught. The curtain is not in the circuit at all. That gap is an open chimney, and it is working against you every hour the heater runs.

A pelmet caps it. Once the top is sealed, the sides are returned to the wall and the curtain reaches the floor, the air behind the fabric has nowhere to go. It sits there, warms slightly, and stops carrying heat out of the room. That trapped still air is the entire insulating mechanism, and none of it happens while the top is open. This is why we will always argue for a pelmet before we argue for a more expensive fabric.

There is a second benefit that matters just as much in a bedroom. Light escapes and enters through the same gap. Plenty of people buy blockout curtains, get a bright halo above the track at sunrise, and conclude the blockout fabric was rubbish. The fabric was fine. The top was open.

Options

• Fabric-covered pelmet. A timber frame covered in your curtain fabric or a coordinating one. Softens the top of the window and ties into the drape. $180 to $450 per window.
• Painted timber or MDF pelmet. A square-edged board painted to match your architraves and skirting so it reads as joinery. The usual choice in newer estate homes where the look is clean and square. $200 to $600 per window.
• Ceiling-fixed track instead. Where the cornice allows, we fix the track hard to the ceiling with no gap at all. Same seal, no pelmet, lowest cost. Not always possible with a deep decorative cornice or a bulkhead.
• Pelmet plus a blind behind. On a combination window the pelmet hides both the curtain track and the roller blind bracket at once. See curtains and blinds together.

Where it suits

Every heated room, if the budget stretches. If it does not, prioritise in this order: the main living room, the main bedroom, then any bedroom that needs to be dark. Older brick veneer homes around central Pakenham and Berwick are the strongest case, because the track is usually wall-fixed above the architrave with a substantial gap to the ceiling, and the windows are single glazed. Homes in Emerald, Cockatoo and Pakenham Upper come next, simply because the overnight temperatures are lower and the heating runs longer.

Newer estate homes in Officer, Clyde North and the Pakenham estates are sometimes the exception, because the ceilings are square, the cornices are shallow and the track can go straight to the plaster. In that case we will tell you to skip the pelmet and save the money. We would rather do that than sell you a box you did not need.

How we measure and fit it

The depth of the pelmet is set by the curtain stack, which is how far the folded curtain projects from the wall when it is open. Too shallow and the pelmet clips the fabric or leaves the track visible from an angle. We measure the projection of the track, add the fabric depth at 2 times fullness, and size the board to clear it with a small margin. The height is set so the bottom edge of the pelmet sits below the top of the curtain heading, which is what closes the gap.

The board returns to the wall at both ends, matching the curtain return, so the seal is continuous around the top and both sides. It is fixed to the wall or the ceiling with brackets sized for the span, and on a wide living room opening we add intermediate brackets so nothing bows over time. Painted pelmets are finished in the workroom, not on site, so the finish is even and there is no smell in the house.

Lead time and care

Pelmets are made alongside the curtains over the same 3 to 5 weeks, so adding them does not normally extend the job. Care is minimal. Dust the top of a painted pelmet a couple of times a year, since the upward face collects more than you expect. Fabric-covered pelmets can be vacuumed with a soft brush head. Neither needs anything else. Prices for pelmets alongside every other option are on the 2026 pricing page, and if warmth is the reason you are here, read thermal curtains next.