the cornice board and dining chairs

Last night I made the cornice board for the living room window.  Note to self, next time I make a 13 foot long cornice while kneeling on a marble floor, buy kneepads. 

Remember the peach curtains?

Originally, I wanted to take down the peach monstrosity and put up a clean, simple brass curtain rod, like this one from Pottery Barn:

A few things stopped me.  One, my inlaws like having the sheers in the window.  Since the window is a little over thirteen feet long, that meant a curtain rod would need support brackets in two places in the middle of the window, thus making it impossible to fully open the sheers. Two, that curtain rod was over $200 (close to $250 after shipping).  Three, that curtain rod was sold out, and 13 feet long is not exactly a standard size  that you can buy in stores. Plus, even though brass is supposedly making a comeback, its not easy to find in big box stores yet.  And four, a few years ago they had a leak in the roof, since repaired, but the ceiling and wall sustained a lot of damage.  Its been fixed but the patch is still visible.

The other option was to use the hardware from the peach curtains.

It was a 13 foot long board with a very long track for the sheers, and shorter tracks on either side for the curtain panels.  The board was attached to the wall with L brackets.  And it was free.  The only problem was that using the board would require making a cornice or a valance to hide the board.  I was trying to get away from adding more fabric/pattern to the room, and 13 feet of cornice would be a pretty big piece of fabric. 

I used Pottery Barn ivory dupioni silk curtains, and they only came in sizes up to 120 inches.  To make the cornice was 157 inches, and using two of the same curtains to match the fabric would have required a seam. I didn't think that would look great, nor do I sew. 

I turned to Fabric.com and looked in the dupioni silk section.  Although they had an ivory dupioni, I was leery of trying to match the curtain. So I went with a fairly neutral gold-ish tan small check.  It had a bit of sheen, a bit of roughness, was the same type of material, but was not a "look at me!!" floral or other pattern that would compete with all the other colors and patterns in the room.  And I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. 

Here's me making the cornice at 10 pm last night.  I do everything after children are in bed.

I used the same cornice tutorial that I've used in the past (here and here) from Little Green Notebook.  Its just using foam core board, wrapping it with batting, and stapling the fabric.  Since the cornice was so long I affixed the sections with duct tape on the back, but clear packing tape on the front.  I have learned from experience that duct tape will show through a lot of lighter fabrics. 

This morning I recovered the dining seat cushions.  I didn't have to kneel on the floor to do it, and my knees thanked me for that.  Formerly burgundy striped:

Afterwards, a light peach and blue and beige floral:

 Yes, I know, I said I was trying to stay away from more colorful florals.  However, this had all of the right colors, matched the other side of the room, my inlaws LOVE florals, and---the kicker----it was $4.99 a yard in upholstery weight.  Shabaam. Sold. 

I've been kind of falling down on the blogging front, I've got a ton of stuff to blog.  I've just been so busy trying to finish the room.  My sister is clamoring for the pictures we took of my little girl and her new little girl together---J--you can have those pictures when you send me your guest blog post--bwahahaha...and a ton of other stuff.

Ok!  I'm working on the big reveal post.  Coming soon!