The second phase to updating the existing living room window treatments after the curtain update was re-upholstering the cornice. As much as I love pieces with wings and curves I did not love it for the cornice. Here’s a shot before I ripped up someone’s expensive hard work from 30+ years ago.
I toyed with the idea of painting it white for a classic look but after we took off the old fabric Mace informed me it wasn’t high quality plywood and painting it would only draw out in imperfections. I actually still like the idea of building a new one and having the crown molding detail wrap around it like the images below. If only we had ceilings that high… sigh.
P.S. love those floors!
Back to the cornice project. After taking off the old fabric (I decided to leave the old batting, less work to recover) I had to square up the shape of the cornice. Truth: Mace added his 2 cents and helped me with this (he is more precise than I am with measurements). I had assumed the different sections were level with each other (first pic) but they were not and it wouldn’t have been completely straight if I used my first markings (second pic shows one is slightly lower than the other)… though I’m pretty sure my eye would have caught it after I cut it but I was very happy not to have to redo anything.
Next up, power tools. Much to Mace’s surprise (I have no idea why, I am miss independent after all!) I powered up the jig-saw and went about making the cuts without his consultation or guidance before hand. I can’t quite figure out why he thinks I’m always going to cut a finger off around power tools, I’m a little spacey sometimes but not that spacey… at least I don’t think I am!
After stapling the batting around the fresh edges it was time to put the new fabric cover on! I decided to stay away from a solid color, I thought it would be pretty boring and this was the chance to add some fun pattern and interest to the space. Below are some of the patterns I was looking at. Ultimately I decided I wanted more than just 2 colors in the patterns, with grey walls and grey curtains I thought it would be a little bland. I was really drawn to the one you see in both photos. Of course Joanne’s didn’t have enough in their stores but I was able to get the pattern information and got enough yardage at fabric.com.
The pattern actually made it pretty easy to line up the edges of the cornice and make sure it didn’t get out of whack while I was stapling.
I started with stapling each side and made sure I pulled it really tight and kept the pattern straight. When I was taking off the original fabric I was also paying attention to how they had attached it and tried to repeat the steps as best as I could tell they did them, similar to what I did with the dining room chair upholstery project.
Next was wrapping the corners really tight then wrapping the fabric around the edge of the cornice, keeping the pattern inline.
And here I am hard at work finishing the 2nd side.
Next up was the white lining. If I hadn’t done this you would have seen plywood when you looked in our front window so it gives a much more finished look. I just used fabric glue to adhere it instead of staples. It was a bit of a pain in the butt to fold the edges and create a finished edge (which wasn’t perfectly straight) but I was really happy with how the cornice looked in the end. Looks like Irish was staying with us again and was a very attentive design assistant!
Here’s the cornice installed with the new drapes. That window lets in a ton of light so it was hard to get a good pic but a major improvement from where we started! The living room was starting to come together!! I did this project in phases and the cutting and reupholstering portions I did over the course of 4 nights.
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