Hi everyone! I'm adding panels to the windows in my son's room and I need some help deciding how much fabric I need. The panels will be for show only - the windows have black-out cellular shades. I plan on making the curtains myself and I'm wondering if I can get away with getting two panels out of a single length of 54" wide fabric. Meaning, I'd have 27 inches of width for each panel, and that is before adding hems and double pleats. I know that for functioning curtains, this would probably be much too narrow. But for show only? Can I get away with this? Or will I regret not using the full 54" of fabric? In case it matters, the window is about 58" wide. I think the general rule is that the pleats will eat up half your width, so that means my panels would be about 13" wide. But 99.9% of the time they would be pushed to the sides.

Thanks for your opinions! I pop on this board off and on as projects wax and wane, and if all goes as planned I will have a lot to show you all in the coming months!