DIY CORNICE

I’m not much of a carpenter but I saw a DIY on Pinterest (of course) that looked so simple I knew I had to try! The great part about this project is that you can totally customize it to fit your window & decor. I haven’t found a fabric that I really love yet, so I used some sand colored muslin fabric (originally used as a table cloth for our wedding) until I find something perfect.

Make sure you read the entire tutorial before you start… we ended up doing it one way then realizing it would be easier to do it another, haha. It all worked out for us, but maybe you have better ideas than us, haha! Also, I got so caught up trying to finish before my son woke up from his nap that I realized I didn’t take as many pictures as I would have liked. Here’s to hoping my explanations make enough sense… Haha.

What I used:

• A wood plank that was 1″x12″x8′ I’m pretty sure it was this one from Lowe’s… Whitewood Softwood Board. I needed the board to be cut to 7′, plus I needed to 4″ pieces for the sides. They did these two cuts for free, anything more is $.25 per cut. This board costs $18
• Batting. I accidentally grabbed a bag of the King Size from Joann’s that was sitting in the twin size bin. All batting was on sale but I paid $14.99 for the King size instead of $8.99 for the Twin size. I’m sure I’ll use the leftovers for another project, though!
• Staple gun
• Fabric of your choice
• Wood Glue
• Screws- I bought 1 1/2 inch, & I had some smaller size ones in my toolbox
• 2 L brackets (also called corner braces, I think?) these were also already in my toolbox
• Drill

What I did:

• Use a line of wood glue to secure your 4″ pieces of wood on either end of the plank. I meant to clamp them down but got sidetracked (imagine that, lol) & by the time I remembered, the glue was already dry- 30 mins or so?
• Drill your screws in to further secure the 4″ pieces of wood.

 

• Measure your batting & leave a few extra inches of overhang so you can staple it to the back of the wood. I just put the wood right on top of the batting & cut around it.

• Staple the batting onto the wood.
• Measure & cut your fabric to fit, again leaving some overhang so it can be wrapped around & stapled.
• Screw in an L bracket to each of the 4″ pieces of wood. Sorry, I don’t have a picture of this step! But the bracket looked something like this:

There really wasn’t an “easy” way to mount it & we realized it would be easier to mount the bracket to the wall first, then attach it to the wood. The fact that we had already screwed the bracket into the wood actually helped because I knew right where it needed to go– does that make sense?

Here’s what we did:

• Took brackets back off the wood (lol)
• I used push pins & a streamer (you could use ribbon, rope, string etc.) to not only measure where the holes in the wall for the brackets were going to go, but this also helped us get a level line. If you decide to do this, make sure you cut it to the length between the brackets NOT the entire cornice. I put up the streamer & I’m really good at math so...  I got super lucky so… I got it right on the first try.
• Once you find the points where the brackets will be screwed in, mark your wall.
• Drill your brackets into the marks.
• Bring your cornice up & fasten the brackets into the holes you made earlier.

& here’s the end result!

I hope this makes sense, if you have any questions feel free to email me or leave a comment. Thanks for stopping by!