Blocking Light Through Door Curtains

[Les Izmore]

I think I may have seen this simple tip elsewhere on the forum, but if so, I suspect it is buried pretty deep by now. There are plenty of times when there is sufficient artificial light to negatively affect our sleeping. Most private campgrounds are lit up like car dealerships, camping in front of a friend's house usually means street lights and the occasional motion sensitive flood light, etc.

In the past we would simply tuck a t-shirt into the top of the door curtains (which is probably why we had to repair some curtain track in a couple of places). At least half the time, all or part of the t-shirt would come down before morning.

We still use the same technique, but now we keep two clothespins pinned to the top of the curtain nearest the door hinges (so that we don't have to fumble around trying to find them in one of our cabinets). We can quickly pin up a t-shirt to block the light, and so far it has always stayed in place throughout the night.

 

[Les Izmore]

Hi Bear!

Do you have a link to the blackout material? We had contemplated replacing the curtains, but couldn't find liners other than like what comes with the camper (unless we wanted to buy a full bolt). I doubt if we'll run out and change curtains any time soon, but it might be a project for a winter layover some year.

 

[Mark & Casandra]

Here is the first blackout fabric I found at JoAnn's. Other colors are available and it's on sale right now. Even if it's not on sale when you do get ready to buy it, JoAnn's usually has online coupons you can use for 40% off of one regular priced item; so it should be fairly inexpensive, esp. no more fabric than would be needed for our camper windows:
Roc-Lon® Budget Blackout® Ivory/White | Jo-Ann

Casandra

 

[Les Izmore]

Thanks! That is probably what we saw when we were shopping at JoAnn's. To us it looked like the existing liner (I don't recall seeing any that wasn't a blackout fabric), so we weren't sure that making curtains with that would be an improvement. I suspect in another five years we will be in need of new curtains and we will give it a try. Until then, the clothespins are a simpler solution, and equally effective.

 

[Les Izmore]

We were at Walmart in Bend, OR this morning, and they were selling light blocking panels in several colors for $11. It looked to me like they could used to make a set of curtains for our camper. Just cut 'em down, trim 'em and add the curtain track. Doing that would actually be cheaper than what we paid to have ours dry cleaned.

 

[AlCat]

until you update the curtains, you could use an eyeshade

Eagle Creek Sandman Eyeshades

 

[Les Izmore]

Too late! We already used our REI 20% off coupon. ;-)

Two clothespins and a t-shirt generally does the trick. I suspect we will keep the factory curtains for at least a couple more seasons. When we first thought of making curtains from scratch it was appearing to be ridiculously expensive. Repurposing liners looks to be way cheaper and less work.

 

[Les Izmore]

Thanks for the link!

Yes, I've seen the white blockout material pretty much everywhere. But it looked enough like the liner on the factory curtains that we were hesitant to buy any.

I am certain that when we do replace our curtains that we will repurpose liners like those I saw at WM. That way we can't be overwhelmed by the seemingly endless choices of curtain fabric at JoAnns. I would much rather make a decision from a handful of choices. Plus a good part of the sewing is already done.

 

[Mark & Casandra]

READING THIS FORUM CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE! .....or at least your night's sleep & some sanity!

Thank you, Steve & Alea! I really appreciate this post! We recently spent 4 nights in our camper parked on the church property RV hookup sites of the church where our daughter was getting married and this was a real issue for us for the first time. Even though we were in a nice, quiet, rural area of Oklahoma with some shade, the sunlight came flooding in thru my door window bright & early each morning as soon as the sun topped the horizon & large property floodlights were coming in thru the other door window each night. But thankfully I remembered having read this post, so I knew just what to do & reached for the t-shirts & it really helped me to get a few more precious winks of sleep. So you guys were pretty much lifesavers for me, seeing as how sleep is already very hard to come by for the Mother Of The Bride in those last few hectic days before a wedding that your family is totally DIY'ing!

Casandra