Pelmets: What They Are and When You Need One

Most pages about pelmets are trying to sell you one. Here's what one is for, which windows need it, and which already have something doing the same job, from someone who supplies them and still talks people out of them.

Know what a pelmet actually does

A pelmet does three jobs, and only one of them is decoration.

• It hides the hardware. The track and runners, or the roll and brackets of a blind.
• It closes the top. With nothing above it, a curtain or blind leaves a strip open between its top edge and the wall or ceiling. Light comes through it in the morning and air moves through it all day.
• It frames the window. A pelmet set wider and higher than the frame makes a modest window read larger, the same trick as hanging the curtain past the frame.

A valance is different: gathered fabric hung across the top. A pelmet is the rigid one.

Choose the type by the room

• Box pelmets. A painted timber or MDF box, square-edged, usually the colour of the wall or the ceiling. This is the modern default, and it disappears.
• Upholstered pelmets. The same box wrapped in fabric, often the curtain fabric. Softer, more traditional, right in a formal room.
• Recessed pelmets. A slot built into the ceiling so the track sits up inside it. The cleanest finish of all, and easiest to plan before a ceiling goes in.
• Blind pelmets and fascias. A slim front panel across the top of a roller blind, hiding the tube and brackets.

We supply pelmets, and the right finish is a conversation at the measure. If you're renovating, ask about a recess before the plasterer arrives.

Use one for heat, not just looks

This is the job most people never hear about. A curtain with an open top acts like a chimney: air cooled against the glass drops behind the fabric, spills out at the bottom, and warmer room air is drawn in over the top to replace it. Close the top and the loop stops.

The Australian Government's Your Home guide to glazing recommends exactly that: "snugly fitted blinds and curtains with pelmets that trap a layer of still air next to the window". Renew's guide to high-performance curtains makes the same point. I've gone through why it matters more than the fabric in do thermal curtains work, and the short version is that a pelmet over an ordinary curtain beats an expensive curtain with an open top.

Size it to clear the curtain, not the track

The mistake I see most often is a pelmet built to the depth of the track. The curtain's heading sits in front of the track, and a curtain on a track needs room to run without its folds rubbing the inside of the box. So the pelmet has to clear the track and the full depth of the heading, and on a double track, both layers.

Width matters as much: run it past the frame far enough to cover the curtain stacked open, or the stack hangs out from under it looking slightly lost.

Add one to a blind when you can see the roll

A roller blind fitted inside the window frame rarely needs a pelmet; the frame hides most of the hardware.

Fitted to the face of the wall above the frame, it's different. You see the tube, the fabric wrapped around it and the brackets at each end, and light leaks over the top. A slim pelmet or fascia across the front hides all of it. Whether that's worth it is mostly about how often you look up. In a living room, usually yes. In a laundry, I'd save the money.

Skip the pelmet when the track is in the ceiling

Here's the part a pelmet seller won't lead with. If the track is fixed to the ceiling, or recessed into it, the curtain already drops from the top with no gap above. Renew's guide puts it plainly: an enclosed pelmet at the top, or a curtain that drops straight from the cornice. Either one does the job.

So on a new build or a renovation, I'd usually put the track in the ceiling and skip the box. Pelmets earn their place on existing windows where the track has to go on the wall, on face-fitted blinds, and in rooms where the look is the point. A pelmet that is only there because the last house had one is just joinery to dust.

Frequently asked questions