Solution to Broken Curtain

The room darkening curtain in Alex's room broke and was then torn into pieces, taking repair off the table as an option.

I knew I had to replace the curtain but given that we're in a budget crunch, simply reordering another was going to be too expensive.

I'm fairly handy with both hand-held needle and machine so I knew I could visit my local fabric store and make something suitable, but the question remained: how to hang it up?

A curtain rod was out of the question.  Too many possibilities for disaster.  I could picture Alex trying to hang from it or yank it down to get the curtains down (which is how the room darkening curtain met its fate).  I could see him wanting to use it as a post (a use to which every stick in the houseful has been put).  It would likely be ripped out of the wall at one point or another and I wanted to avoid that.

My solution: Velcro.

I used self-adhesive Velcro over the window and then sewed the other side to my curtains.  (For the curtains themselves, the fabric store had large swatches of fleece in almost exactly the right size.)  Alex is ripping them down almost every night but they go right back up again, no problem.  And if they need to be washed, also no problem.  No having to thread them onto a pole afterwards, either.

The fleece works surprisingly well as a curtain.  It blocks the cool draft from the window and is almost opaque.  It's not Martha Stewart ... but I'm happy with it.