What curtains actually cost in Pakenham.

The 2026 bands, supplied and installed.

These are the ranges we quote across Pakenham, Officer, Beaconsfield and the rest of the Cardinia Shire. Everything below includes GST, and includes measuring, making, hardware and installation unless noted.

Lead time is 3 to 5 weeks from the day you approve the quote, because everything is cut and made to your measurements rather than pulled off a shelf.

Why curtains are priced by track length, not by window.

This is the single most misunderstood thing about curtain pricing, and it is worth understanding before you compare quotes. A curtain is not made to the size of your glass. It is made to the length of the track it hangs on, multiplied by a fullness factor, and then hemmed. The window behind it is almost incidental to the cost.

Say you have a 2.4 metre wide window. If the track is fitted tight inside the reveal at 2.4 metres, the curtain is made from 2.4 metres of track. If the track is extended 25cm past the reveal on each side so the open curtain stacks off the glass and lets full daylight in, that same window is now a 2.9 metre track. At 2.5 times fullness that is the difference between 6 metres and 7.25 metres of gathered fabric width, which is more than a metre of extra material plus the labour to make it up. Both quotes describe the same window. Only one of them will actually look right and let the light in.

The lesson for comparing quotes: check the track lengths, not the window sizes. A cheaper quote is often a shorter track.

Fullness multipliers.

Fullness is how much more fabric width is used than the track it covers, and it is what makes a curtain look like a curtain rather than a flat sheet. It is set by the heading you choose.

• S-fold (wave): 2.2 to 2.5 times the track length. The wave only forms properly at this fullness, which is why S-fold costs more in fabric than the heading itself suggests.
• Pinch pleat, double: around 2 to 2.2 times. The classic, and the most fabric-efficient of the pleated headings.
• Pinch pleat, triple: around 2.2 to 2.5 times. Fuller and more formal, noticeably more fabric.
• Pencil pleat: around 2 to 2.5 times depending on how tightly the tape is drawn.
• Eyelet: around 1.8 to 2 times. The cheapest to make, and rod-only.

A 3.6 metre track at 2.5 times fullness needs 9 metres of gathered width. The same track at 2 times needs 7.2 metres. That 1.8 metre difference is real money in both fabric and labour, and it is why the heading decision is a cost decision as much as an aesthetic one.

Fabric width, drop and how many drops you need.

Curtain fabric comes in standard widths, most commonly 140cm to 150cm for face fabrics and often 280cm to 300cm for sheers, which are frequently woven wide so they can be railroaded, meaning turned on their side and run horizontally with no joins. Your required gathered width is divided by the usable fabric width to work out how many drops the curtain needs, always rounded up.

That rounding is where costs jump in steps rather than smoothly. If you need 7.4 metres of gathered width and the fabric is 140cm wide, you need 6 drops, not 5.3. Nudge the track 10cm longer and you might tip into 7 drops. This is also why a railroaded wide sheer is often better value than a narrow face fabric for a big stacker door: no joins, no rounding penalty, and no seam lines catching the light.

Drop matters too, obviously. A 2.1 metre sill-height window uses far less fabric per drop than a 2.7 metre ceiling-to-floor run in one of the newer Officer builds. Longer drops also add weight, which often pushes you from a standard track to a heavy-duty one.

Pattern repeat: the hidden cost.

If the fabric has a pattern, every drop has to begin at the same point in the design so the pattern lines up horizontally across the finished curtain. That means each drop is cut to the next whole repeat and the remainder is waste. A fabric with a 64cm vertical repeat, on a 2.4 metre drop, needs 2.56 metres cut per drop, so you discard 16cm every time. On a six-drop curtain that is nearly a metre of fabric you have paid for and will never see.

Large repeats on expensive fabric are where curtain budgets quietly blow out. Plain fabrics, small textures and most sheers have no repeat at all, which is one reason the textured plains dominate our fabric recommendations for large windows.

Lining, and what each step buys you.

• Unlined: sheers only. Anything else looks thin and offers no thermal benefit.
• Standard lining: the baseline. Better drape, longer fabric life, modest warmth. Adds roughly 15 to 25 percent to the curtain.
• Blockout lining: stops light. Essential in bedrooms, particularly east and west facing rooms in the estates.
• Thermal or coated lining: the real winter performer. Worth every dollar in older single glazed homes around Koo Wee Rup and Bunyip.
• Interlining (bump): a soft layer between face fabric and lining. Best thermal result and a beautiful weight, and the most expensive option.

Worked example one: a Pakenham bedroom.

A standard 1.8 metre bedroom window. Track extended to 2.2 metres so the curtain stacks clear of the glass, standard track at $140. Blockout triple weave in double pinch pleat at 2.2 times fullness, so 4.84 metres of gathered width, which at 140cm fabric is 4 drops. Drop is 2.2 metres to a floor finish. All up, roughly $520 supplied and installed. Swap to a premium patterned fabric with a large repeat and the same window comes in nearer $780.

Worked example two: a stacker door in an estate home.

A 3.6 metre stacker with the track extended to 4.2 metres so the stack sits off the glass. S-fold sheers at 2.4 times fullness is 10.1 metres of gathered width, made from a 300cm railroaded sheer so there are no joins. S-fold compatible track across that span is heavy-duty at around $380. Supplied and installed, roughly $1,050 to $1,250. Add a second track behind it with blockout for night privacy and you are adding another $700 to $950. Stack-back and draw direction on doors like this are covered in curtains for sliding doors.

Worked example three: a whole new build.

A four bedroom estate home with a stacker to the alfresco, a large living window, a dining window, four bedrooms and a study. Sheers through the living and dining, blockout in all four bedrooms and the study, quality tracks throughout. That lands around $7,800. Take the sheers to premium fabric and motorise the stacker and it moves toward $11,000. Do the bedrooms only this year and the living areas next year and the first stage is around $3,200.

Where you can genuinely save.

• Choose a plain or small-texture fabric on your biggest windows and spend the pattern budget on one feature room.
• Use double pinch pleat rather than triple where the room does not need the formality.
• Put blockout only where you sleep. Sheers alone are fine in most living areas.
• Keep tracks manual except where the window is genuinely out of reach.
• If you already own curtains, price a re-hem, re-head or added lining before replacing them. It is often a third of the cost.

Where saving costs you.

Short tracks, sill-length drops on floor-height windows, unlined face fabric, and undersized hardware on a long heavy run. All four look cheaper on the quote and all four either fail to do the job or fail early. If you want to sanity check a quote yourself before we visit, the measuring guide shows exactly which numbers to look at.

Frequently asked questions.