curtains

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konpikoulas

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Hello to all,
I am trying to convert a room in my house into a darkroom. It has a door and one window in the opposite wall. The room is to be used by the members of the house too, so the modification should not be permanent. I am thinking of using curtains to lightproof it. Do you know which material is best?
Thanks in advance.
 
IKEA light blocking roll curtains are very good and quite cheap for 10-20 Euros
If you want to make 100* sure use some velcro dots to make it fit tight to the window
or spry-paint it black (matte)

konpikoulas said:
Hello to all,
I am trying to convert a room in my house into a darkroom. It has a door and one window in the opposite wall. The room is to be used by the members of the house too, so the modification should not be permanent. I am thinking of using curtains to lightproof it. Do you know which material is best?
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
 
Thank you very much Titrisol.
In fact there is an "IKEA" shop near by. I will pay a visit and see those roll curtains.
 
I have a similar, but slightly different, problem which I think needs a little lateral thinking.

I am planning to convert our bathroom into a darkroom of sorts. My problem is that we rent a flat, so any modifications have to be easily reversible. There's three openings in the bathroom. Two are easy - you can hang a towel over the fan, and the window has a plastic frame so I can stick velcro to it and remove it when we leave, with the help of a little stickystuff remover.

But I'm stymied by the door - the frame is painted, so anything stuck to it runs the chance of taking decades worth of gloss paint off. I did think about hanging a duvet from a rod on the row of coathokks on it, but I can't work out how to fix the duvet to the rod so that it stays up there.

Any bright ideas out there? Or photos of temporary setups you've got to work? I'm not very lateral in the thinking department sometimes, and this one of those times.

Thanks,

Adrian
 
I use black cardboard, folded conveniently, in order to keep light coming
through the edges. A towel o something similar in the ground. Do not forget
the keyhole! It was, during some time, a nice lightleak in my darkroom
(and light coming from the top of the door, not properly sealed, some more
cardboard solved the problem).

Pau
 
Without seeing the door it is hard to prescribe a fix. Rather than a drape, why not a second "door" that is upholstered in dark fabric (or painted black) and edged with foam that would just fit into the doorway as a secondary door inside or outside of the current door. I write "door" because it wouldn't even need to be made of wood, just something rigid enough to hold shape. Edging it with foam would act as a gasket to make it light tight. Close the door, jam it in place, and the shut the lights off.

Do figure out some ventilation though. No sense killing yourself.
 
Find some heavy black cloth and put a row of "grommets" at the top and matching hooks along the top of the door. Extend the cloth so that it covers at least 6-10" beyond the frame of the door and make sure that there is at least a 10" "fold" at the bottom. Most light leaks are from the bottom of the door any way and just allow the cloth to extend a bit along the threshold and into the darkroom. You can always put something heavy on the "overlap" to keep it tight against the threshold and floor.
If you dont want to drill holes for the hooks, use self adhesive ones - or if you have tiled walls - you can use suction cups with hooks on them.
I have found over the years that the best material is black "velvet" type material. It folds up nicely for storage and is surprisingly light tight when covering the door.
 
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