Blackout Curtains for Small Windows - Thermal Insulated Room Darkening Drapes with Rod Pocket, Light Grey (52x45 Inch, Set of 2 Panels) - Perfect for Bedroom, Living Room & Home Theater

I got these in dark gray, 52x72. I've had a TON of blackout curtains and these are the best deal in my opinion if they work for you, although they aren't quite as effective as more expensive curtains. They do let in little pinpoints of light but this is fine for us. These curtains are very thick, btw. And the sewing and construction are very nice.Unfortunately these don't work in our space even though they're great.We have Eclipse blackout wraparound double rods, so we can have blackout curtains under regular curtains that are more our style. The thing is the rods are pretty close to each other, maybe 1" apart? So when you push these curtains to the side of the rod, they bunch up and fill the entire space between rods. That makes it harder to push the curtains apart, and they slowly slide back toward the middle when you stop pushing. It's a ton of work to slide these open if you use the rod pocket, and you have to stand in the exact right spot (or on a ladder) to be able to get them to slide to the side. If you use the rod pocket you probably wouldn't want to open and close these every day. We want them open in the day so we're using curtain rings to make them work better, but that changes the length of the curtains and makes you want to mount the rod higher up.We don't have a lot of room on the sides of our windows to mount the curtain rod brackets further apart so we can't push the curtains all the way to the side either when we use the rod pockets. The curtains cover a big portion of the window. It's super frustrating.Anyway, using curtain rings allows the curtains to slide easily with minimal force, and to slide fully to one side or the other without covering any of the window.I didn't realize how to choose the best size of blackout curtains for our application. When I have the blackout curtains shut I want them to be relatively flat, especially because the curtain rings make the top less stable and let more light in when there's extra fabric. Also, when the curtains are pushed to the sides, I want them to fold up narrow enough to disappear behind the front curtains. Just as an example, we have one window that's about 52" wide, with the rod brackets mounted a few inches outside each side of the window. So for 52", we need a total curtain width of up to about 62" to fully cover the window, with no gaps and minimal bunching/slack to keep light out and look nice. These curtains are 52" wide and there are two, so that's 104" of curtain width, a few feet wider than needed. The width on these is great, especially at this price (most sellers cut corners on the width because people often don't notice). But it's just way too wide for our windows. I thought wider meant more coverage lol but it's not the case for our setup.Anyway I wanted to mention this hoping it would save other people some time. We have the wrong color of rings so we have to buy more curtain rings and narrower curtains. Also again, having to hang the curtain on rings means you may need a different length or may need to install the rod higher up. The rings allow more light if you don't plan ahead, because they lower the top edge of the curtain closer to the window.If you want to be able to easily slide these fully to the side every day, and minimize light, you may want to:* Use curtain rings (that match the rod ?)* Include the length of the rings when you're planning (get the right curtain length and mount the rod at the right height for the length of curtain AND rings, or plan to hem)* Install the rod at the correct height for the length of your panel AND the rings, with enough room at the top to minimize light spilling out* Buy the correct width of curtain. If you want them flat when they're closed, to minimize light, you may need narrower panels than you think (don't just buy the standard width because that's what you usually get)It's not this manufacturer's fault at all but the process of figuring this out has been extremely frustrating. I've put so many holes in the wall and gone through at least 10 sets of curtains in the past several years, plus multiple rod sets. So hopefully this helps someone lol