Bay window curtains that follow the bay.

A bay window is three to five panes of glass wrapped around a recess, which means three to five cold surfaces instead of one, and a pocket of air that sits lower and colder than the rest of the room. On a winter night in an older brick veneer home around central Pakenham or Berwick, the bay is generating cold air faster than any other part of the house, and gravity pours it out across the floor.

The usual arrangement makes it worse. Someone fits a straight rod across the mouth of the bay, which looks fine and costs little, but leaves the entire recess on the cold side of the curtain. The bay becomes a chilled box venting into the room along the floor, the sill or window seat is unusable whenever the curtains are drawn, and the curtain itself is a long way from the glass so the still-air pocket is enormous and keeps circulating. It is the worst of both approaches.

A bent track solves it by following the shape. The curtain travels around the recess, sits close to each pane, and closes the air gap on every face. The bay stays part of the room, the window seat still works with the curtains drawn, and the same sealing rules that apply to any window now actually apply here.

Track and fabric options

• Bent track, 3 sections. The standard splayed bay. Track curved at two points to your measured angles. The most common bay in Pakenham housing stock.
• Bent track, 4 to 5 sections. Wide front-room bays and squared bays with a flat centre pane. More bends, more span, top of the price band.
• Centre split or single sweep. A centre split parts in the middle and stacks at both ends. A single sweep draws right across to one side, which suits a bay where only one end has usable wall for the stack.
• Lining choice. Blockout for a bedroom bay, or thermal and interlined for a living room bay, which is where the warmth payoff is largest given the glass area.

Where it suits

Bays turn up most in the established housing around central Pakenham, Berwick and Beaconsfield, and in the older larger homes at Pakenham Upper, Cardinia, Nar Nar Goon and Bunyip. Up in Emerald and Cockatoo, where overnight minimums sit close to freezing, a bay in a heated living room is usually the highest-value single window in the house to fix. Newer estate homes have fewer true bays, though squared projections and corner window arrangements come up and are handled the same way with a bent or jointed track.

How we measure and fit it

Each face of the bay is measured separately along the exact line the track will take, and we take the internal angle at every bend with a bevel rather than assuming 45 or 90 degrees. Bays are rarely built to the angles on the plan, and a track bent to a template instead of to your bay will not sit against the wall. Those measured angles go to the track maker, who forms the curve to your window.

We also check three things people forget. First, sill depth and whether there is a window seat, since the curtain hem has to clear it or run past it to the floor. Second, how much flat wall exists at each end to carry the return and the stack, which is often very little in a bay. Third, the ceiling and cornice above, since that decides whether the track can be ceiling fixed or whether the bay needs a bent pelmet to seal the top. Fullness stays at 2 times across the whole run so the curtain folds and closes flat right around the curve.

Lead time, price and care

Allow 3 to 5 weeks. The bent track is a custom item made to your angles, and it is made in parallel with the curtains rather than after them. The $900 to $2,600 band is set mostly by total span and section count, with fabric and lining moving it within that range. Every band is on the 2026 pricing page, and if you want a blind behind the curtain on the bay as well, see curtains and blinds together.

Care is the same as any lined curtain: vacuum with a soft brush head twice a year, never machine wash a lined or interlined panel, and dress the folds back around the curve after any cleaning. Run the curtain through its full travel occasionally so the runners stay free at the bends, which is where a neglected bay track stiffens up first.