Blackout Curtains in Tanjong Rhu

A shift worker who needed the bedrooms dark in the middle of the afternoon, which is a different job from hanging a heavy curtain — light comes in around the edges, not through the fabric.

Both tracks were set wide of the reveal and high above it so the curtain overlaps the opening on every side, and the panels overlap each other at the centre rather than meeting.

The wall above one window is plasterboard on studs, and a blackout curtain on a full-width track is heavy enough to pull an anchor out of it in time. We opened up, fitted a plywood backing plate across the studs, made good, and fixed into that.