please pass the corn(ice)

Ok, the title’s a stretch but at least you got a laugh. Or are totally confused. THIS, my friends, is a cornice. I had no idea that these things had a name other than that-bar-thingy-that-goes-across-the-top-of-the-window, but apparently they do. And it’s cornice.

During my visit to my sister’s we went to Joann to look for fabric. I was looking for something I could use to make a window treatment in the boy’s room. My mom found this little number and the green, yellow and brown combination was perfect. I had intentions of making faux roman shades as I did in this project so I bought enough fabric for 2 panels, the length of each window. However, while perusing through pinterest one day I saw this tutorial and thought it was totally adorable and totally do-able. I decided to build a cornice for the boy’s window instead. Because the fabric I bought was cut into 2 panels I had to sew a seam down the middle to make the fabric wide enough to fit the window. Simple. The rest of the project was just as easy. Neil found a board in the garage and cut it to the length we needed. I used a staple gun to wrap the board in batting and then in fabric. *TIP* My sister passed on a handy hint for recovering things. Always staple on the batting and the fabric separately. It does mean twice the staples BUT should you ever want to change the fabric you only have to remove the fabric layer while the batting stays intact, so you don’t have to redo the entire thing! Pretty smart.

After the long board was wrapped and stapled I covered the 2 side pieces and then Neil helped me fasten it all together with 2 L brackets. We then used 2 more L brackets to secure it to the window. Easy peasy. I’m not much of a tutorial maker (I always forget to take pictures of steps along the way!) so if  you are completely lost and you’d like to see the tutorial I followed here is the link.


And here is the finished product. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I think it adds just enough detail to the room.

 

Because I took the pictures looking up it looks like the cornice doesn't quite cover the shade hardware at the top of the window. Let me assure you it does. We hung the cornice as low as possible, flush with the top of the window trim, making sure that it covered the top of the shades. If I were to make it again I would probably make the cornice a couple inches wider but I'm happy with this one regardless.

The best part is because the cornice did not use as much fabric as the roman shades would have I had a lot of fabric left over. Just enough in fact, to make 2 matching pillow cases for the beds. How great is that?

I'm just working on a few more touches and then the room will be complete! Stay tuned.