Cornice Boards

Turns out the kitchen wasn't the only area of our house getting a little upgrade last weekend.  We also finished a project that began nearly a month ago when Cortney was in town and Jack was living it up at Gram's house.

I alluded to the cornice board project in a previous post but haven't shared the pictures yet.  Of course, the inspiration came from pinterest and we followed this tutorial nearly to the tee.

We started by hitting all the local fabric stores in search of the perfect navy and cream striped fabric.  Naturally, it was in the last store that we struck gold.  Then we were off to Home Depot for the supplies.  Cortney and I were probably quite a sight as we hauled lumber through the store while simultaneously doing calculations on our phones in order to give the nice gentlemen at the cutting station the proper measurements.  But we got 'er done!

We were proudly assembling the cornice boards, all by ourselves, when Drew came in the room and was clearly uncomfortable with the amount of time it was taking us (us meaning Cortney because she was much more skilled than I) to screw on the brackets.  We decided to let him help.

Once the frames were built covering them with batting and fabric was as easy as wrapping a present.

Well, maybe not quite that easy.  But a close second.  Not to shabby, right?

And this is where the finished cornice boards remained for the better part of three weeks.

Fast forward to last weekend and our sad, colorless, bare basement windows are now fully dressed!

Here are a couple of close-ups.

Yikes.  Please ignore the dust-covered mini blinds.  Clearly I have some cleaning to do!

While the basement is still a work in progress, I'm loving the addition of some color and texture on the walls.  And I especially love that it was a very affordable and easy DIY solution.  I find window treatments to be a little overwhelming and often very expensive.  I suppose that explains why every window in my house has nothing more than wood blinds covering it.  Well, maybe this project was just the spark I need to start dressing those windows! 

In fact, I have a hunch this won't be last cornice board that finds a home above our windows.