"Custom" Curtains

It has come to my attention that we need some window treatments for our living and dining rooms.  Our chewed up, raggedy old blinds with missing pieces aren't as pleasing to the eye as they once were. 
I have been kidding the wife that the garage is a month away from qualifying for "Clean Sweep" and that surely Clive and his crew were already biting at the bit to get here.  So when she said that someone was coming to give us a free estimate on some windows treatments, I was hoping, of course, for "Design on a Dime."  Much to my dismay, a dime doesn't get you much when it comes to window treatments.  Especially "custom" ones.  Well, unless we are talking about a dime in gambling terms because unless you are laying about a dime a window, you're not getting custom windows treatments.  And that's if you use the illegal immigrant installation option and finnagle the assembly costs by routing it around to different companies.  I had no idea they were so costly.  I was thinking, you know, a couple hundred dollars at best.  I mean, its 50 yards of fabric, and a piece of plywood or two for the cornice board and a rod and some rings, right?  Based on what I know from buying fabric at WalMart and buying plywood at my local lumber yard, several thousand dollars and a small business loan should not be required to purchase curtains.  Unbelievable.  After the "custom" window treatment was gone, we checked at the price at our local Bed Bath and Beyond.  Much better.  If you can go to JCPenney, Bed Bath and Beyond, Sears or numerous other places and get the same stuff at a tenth or even twentieth of the cost, why pay more?  I mean, I can understand double.  Maybe even triple or quadruple the cost for custom made treatments.  But 20 times as much!!!  Save yourself the money.  Go to a chain and invest the difference, you'll thank me later.