My {kind of} bold cornice board...

...or "corny board", as my husband affectionately calls it. He thinks decorating terms are silly. When I said something about spray painting finials, he stopped what he was doing and said, "Finials? Really? Are you just making these words up??" Oh, I love him!

Anyway, back to the point...

Remember when I finished my high chair seat re-do and showed you this picture of my cute boy in front of our vertical blinds in all of their glory. Did I tell you I HATE the look of vertical blinds?


As soon as we moved in I knew I wanted to hide them. I know I could have just taken them down altogether, but I didn't want the hassle of taking them down, storing them somewhere, and putting them back up when we'll be in this apartment for less than a year.

Also the side of the apartment with the blinds gets a LOT of sun and heat in the late-ish afternoon, so I kinda wanted to keep them as insulation from the hot hot sun. (FYI our power bill this month was about $140 more than we used to pay in our old place...what a difference 500 more sq. feet and central air makes in the price...)

So I decided I wanted to keep the blinds up, but HIDE them... So we put up curtains (which ended up being a little small...I'll fix that this week..didn't get done this weekend, oops!) and cut a board (I started with a 1x8x8) for a cornice board. My husband helped me screw it together. This is what our sliding door looked like for a while:


So, the other night I finally got around to covering the cornice board. I did it at about 10:30pm, so I hope I didn't bother the neighbors too much! Sorry Ashley!

First: Lay out your fabric, batting, and board, like a nice soon-to-be-cute little sandwich.


Next: Staple the fabric onto your board. I started in the middle and worked my way out. Apparently it also helps to leave the newspaper you had the last two boxes of kitchen stuff wrapped in on the floor if you're taking pictures. (But hooray! I finally finished unpacking the kitchen last week!)

Tip: On the ends (the little short boards screwed in to the long one) don't wrap the fabric all the way around. Stop on the 1" part that will be flush with the wall, so that you have a place to screw the brackets on to the inside. I wrapped mine all the way around and realized I needed to take it out and fix it. Live and learn.


Then: Hold the board while your cute hubby screws the L brackets onto the short pieces for you.


I know this next picture is kinda blurry, and there's a lot going on with the vert blinds hardware and curtain hardware AND the cornice board, so look closely. We connected one side of the L bracket to the short side of the cornice board and the other flush with the wall.


And Ta-Da! Tell me what you think!

It's not perfect, I know... but I think it's a heck of an improvement.

I picked a bolder fabric than anything else we have in our house, because I just didn't feel like sticking with the expected, or boring, but branching out a bit. I'll be making tie backs for the living room curtains (which we DID finish hanging this week, I'll post a picture when the tie backs are done). I'm hoping that'll tie the two rooms together a little better.

After getting the board hung up it made me so excited that I went and bought the paint for my dining room table. You'll just have to wait to see what it'll look like!

I'm hoping to get a lot of little things done this week, since my BFF is coming to stay for the weekend. Nothing like house guests to get you going!

Update: The curtains are finished! If you want a sneak peek, click here!

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