This old hotel trick with a coat hanger transforms blackout curtains in seconds

You slam the hotel door, drop the bag, kill the big light and tap the remote. Five minutes later, the telly glow fades and a hard white stripe of car park light slices straight through the middle of the room. You shuffle the blackout curtains, overlap them, tuck them, swear at them. The gap stays. On the wardrobe rail hangs the answer: a simple clothes hanger with clips.

In budget chains, seasoned night‑shift workers and red‑eye travellers know this already. They close the curtains once, reach for the hanger, pinch the two panels together in the middle and go straight back to sleep. No towels jammed in corners, no elaborate origami over the rail. One old‑school trick and the room finally goes dark.

Why blackout curtains fail when you need them most

Hotel curtains are built to survive years of use, not to meet your Sunday‑morning standards of darkness. The rail runs straight across, the two panels meet roughly in the centre, and gravity does the rest. Even if the fabric is heavy, the slightest draft or tug leaves a thin, bright slice where the panels overlap.

At home it’s the same problem in softer clothes: lovely thick blackout fabric, cheap track, a glow that sneaks in along the join. You can spend money on new linings and “thermal” panels, then lie awake because the gap is still there. The weak point isn’t the cloth. It’s the closure.

The hotel trick works because it treats the curtains like what they really are: two big pieces of fabric that need clamping, not coaxing. When you pull them together and hold them mechanically, you stop the panels from drifting apart every time you move or open a window. It’s a tiny bit of hardware doing the kind of job a magnet or zip would do if the manufacturer had thought it through.

The coat‑hanger clamp: how to get proper dark in 10 seconds

You don’t need a toolkit. You need one hanger with clips – the sort meant for trousers or skirts – or a plain wire or plastic hanger plus a couple of bulldog clips.

1. Draw both curtain panels fully shut so they overlap slightly in the centre.
   
2. Take the hanger and position it halfway down the height of the curtains, where the light strip is worst.
   
3. Use the two built‑in clips to pinch one panel and then the other, bringing them tightly together.
   
4. If you’re using a normal hanger, attach one bulldog clip to each end of the hanger and clamp each curtain panel.

That’s it. The fabric now behaves as if it’s one wide panel, not two independent ones drifting apart on the rail. The light strip shrinks to a faint, harmless glow at the top or bottom instead of a bright band straight across your eyes.

In hotel rooms where the rail sits inside a recessed pelmet, this trick is almost unfair. The side light from the corridor and car park drops to almost nothing, even if you’re next to the lift. Add a rolled‑up towel along the bottom edge if the curtains float above a bright street, and you can get proper cinema dark in the middle of a city.

Turning a one‑night hack into a home routine

Back home, the same habit pays off on school nights, night shifts and summer dawns that start at 4am. The easiest way to keep using it is not to treat it as a clever one‑off, but as part of how the curtains live on the rail.

Hang one clipped hanger permanently at the centre point of the track. In the evening, as you draw the curtains, reach for the hanger, close the clips and forget about it. In the morning, open the clips, slide the hanger up against the rail and push everything back in one go. Two seconds of muscle memory, no faff.

If you’re renting and can’t drill for new poles or blinds, a row of hangers or spring clips turns “we can’t change it” into “we can tame it”. Children’s rooms, attic skylights with flimsy side curtains, south‑facing lounges where the telly fights the sun – all of them respond to a few well‑placed clamps.

You don’t have to make it ugly, either. Black trouser hangers blend into most dark fabrics. Small metal binder clips disappear into patterned curtains. Once they’re in place, visitors notice the cosy dimness, not the hardware making it happen.

“Stop wrestling curtains. Clamp them once and they behave all night.” - Hannah Reid, hotel night manager in Glasgow

Other tiny fixes that make blackout curtains actually black out

Once you’ve killed the centre gap, the rest of the glow is usually boring physics: light sneaking round the sides, over the top, and under the hem. None of it needs carpentry.

• Sides: If light pours in along the edges, stick a pair of self‑adhesive command hooks or small brackets either side of the window and tuck the curtain behind them at night. The fabric hugs the wall and blocks the halo.
• Top: A strip of dark card or foam board laid on top of the rail or pelmet stops light washing over from the top edge. In rentals, Blu Tack or removable strips hold it quietly in place.
• Bottom: A rolled towel or draught excluder under the hem blocks low street light and adds a bonus layer against draughts.

Think of it as sealing an envelope rather than decorating a wall. Every small overlap removes one path for light to reach your eyes. The coat‑hanger trick just deals with the worst offender with the least effort.

Quick reference: where a hanger helps most

Situation	Simple fix
Bright centre strip between curtains	Coat‑hanger or bulldog clips at mid‑height
Glow down the sides	Tuck curtain behind hooks or brackets
Light under the hem	Rolled towel or draught excluder along the sill

Why this boring little hack changes how the room feels

A proper blackout does more than help you sleep. It changes the way evenings and mornings flow. Films stop competing with orange sodium street light. Daytime naps for shift workers and toddlers become easier to pull off without battling reflections. In heatwaves, a sealed curtain keeps rooms cooler by cutting early morning and late afternoon sun.

There’s a money angle too. Before you buy thicker curtains or pay for custom blinds, the hanger trick lets you test how much difference proper darkness would make for you. Many people find that once the gap is gone, their “not good enough” curtains are suddenly fine, and the urge to upgrade fades.

Most of all, it takes the feeling of being held hostage by the room away. You stop blaming the hotel, the landlord, the season. One hanger and a habit give you back control over when it’s night, even if the street outside disagrees.

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FAQ:

• Does this only work with blackout curtains? No. It helps any two‑panel curtain set, but you’ll notice the biggest change with fabric that already blocks most light and just leaks at the join.
  
• What if my curtains don’t have enough overlap to clip? Pull one panel slightly past the centre so they overlap by a hand’s width, then clamp where they cross. If there’s almost no overlap, add a second hanger higher or lower to catch more fabric.
  
• Will clips damage the fabric? On most medium or heavy fabrics, no. If yours are delicate, place a small scrap of cloth between the clip and the curtain, or use clips with rubber pads.
  
• Can I buy something made for this instead of using a hanger? Yes, there are purpose‑made curtain clips and magnetic strips. The coat hanger simply proves the concept in seconds with things you already own.
  
• Is this allowed in hotels and rentals? You’re not drilling, sticking or altering anything permanent, so in most cases it’s fine. Just avoid clipping to delicate sheers, and take your own hanger or clips so you’re not relying on what’s in the wardrobe.