Has anyone ever removed them? Is it easy? difficult? How did you do it? How much mess does it make of the walls and ceilings? Any tips would be fab. Thanks.
You know those horrible wooden overhanging built in curtain tracks?
Can you post a pic? Ours are metal, and secured with a few screws. Looks like they'd be relatively easy to remove and only leave some small holes in the ceiling. I've not seen wooden ones. Maybe they're in older buildings?
[](https://www.englishforum.ch/attachments/housing-general/130686d1510916567-removing-curtain-tracks-img_2778.jpg)
Easiest way to remove curtain tracks. Get a cat.
Are you owner or tenant?
It should not make a mess and only leave a few holes, and it is likely that you will need to paint the ceiling and walls again to avoid color differences. If the room has been painted a few times after these have been put up you might see the outlines due to a difference in the thickness of the paint, and given the picture the paint is structure paint and not continuing behind the curtain holder, it will not be an easy job to finish it of in a new way where all traces are gone.
You're talking about removing the aluminum profiles only, leave everything as is, arnt't you?
The one production method I know goes like:
Every 30-40cm a tongue is cut out from the alumimum on both sides of the u-profile and pushed into the wood.
So you'd need to locate and cut off those tongues but to do that you'd probably need to destroy the u-profile as the slit is looks too narrow.
Why would one remove only the small profile and leave the ugly rest?
(Easiest way for such would be to just push it in, out of sight, out of mind.)
Owner obvs
No I want rid of the wood and to put up normal curtain rails
Is painting the wood white an option? That would make the rails much less obvious and would save you painting wall and ceiling which I think would most likely be necessary after removing the rail.
In our house the curtain rails in the kids‘ rooms are inserted in a white panel just above the windows and I don‘t think it looks too bad.
That is the alternative option, but I'd prefer to remove them. I don't mind painting the wall and ceiling, I just don't want to be left with a huge hole or something. Also not even sure about how to go about removing it.
Just to give you an impression of ours
You are in luck that yours are much smaller, the woodwork from OP is ridiculously huge and I can see why he wants to take them away.
The best way epends on how they are adjusted, but even if they are slided on pins they are locked into the paint now. I would grab a hammer and a big screwdriver and slam of the frontplank, this will give you all visual you need to determine how to move on. I would expect just a handful of normal screws on the inside.
I have the same curtain tracks - and I hate them.
We had ours taken out in one room. Like you, we too have that stippled plaster wall.
Removal is easy - the hard part is repainting or replastering the wall and ceiling so that it matches the rest. Ended up having to do the entire ceiling and walls to get rid of the obvious patchiness.
Whether that came down to a less than skilled plasterer or is to be expected I cannot say.
Given the mess, I decided to let the curtain tracks in other rooms stay. I still hate them.
Given that the track system seems to be everywhere, though, I figured that when the time comes to sell a Swiss buyer would expect them.
Did I mention that I really hate them?
It is to be expected.
Making a perfect crossing between old and new structured plastering takes so much time and effort that a total repaint is the cheaper and better way to go and fixing that crossing perfectly is not even of consideration.
When we renovated our kitchen I removed the tracks and the box.
In our case I had to remove the tracks before I could get to the screws which held the box in place.
The tracks were just glued in place but still required quite a bit of force to pull them out.
In our case there was silicone on all sides of the wood box so that needed removing.
After everything was out I let the gipser and painter do the rest but first I had to apply stain to the wood above the window.
I may have taken some pics. I will post if I find them.
The carpenter told me not all the boxes are installed the same way.
Let's see a picture of what you intend to replace this curtain system with.
We've such a mixture here that it might be good to have a new vision for the future.
I didn't replace ours with anything. I don't want curtains in the kitchen. Only thing I might consider is something on the windows themselves, maybe plissee.
My favourite window coverings are by Tachikawa. Their venetian blinds are washable in the shower. For rooms like the kitchen they can be coated to better protect against grease.
Tachikawa have no distributor in Europe.
But I digress....
I think you have curtain-rail boards, with an isolation above.
Take a look here:- http://www.marobag.ch/vorhangbretter/fly/index.php
The " Typ 3/FLY/VB/ISO20" seems to be similar to yours.
If you have windows which go up to the cealing ( like the eg. above ).
Then you cannot take the "isolation" away, because you would make a cold bridge in the concrete cealing, between the cold outside and the warm room. Condense water on the inside of the windows will be the result of the change in isolation.