Cornice boards and Lambrequins save on heating costs

Several years ago our Public Service company sent out a flyer attached to their bill showing a picture of a cornice board with a dust cover.  They said the dust cover (the top board on the cornice) prevented air circulation behind the drapes and thus prevented drafts around your windows.  A further reduction in airflow could [...]

Covering the lip of a rope welt

  
   After we have hot glued rope welt to the edge of the cornice we need to cover the exposed lip of the cord.  The easiest no-sew way to do this is to make a sharp crease in the fabric by pressing it together with our fingers using 3/4″ Millennium tape.

Matching those pesky stripes

   Every once in a while someone will give me a workroom tip that saves a lot of frustration and results in a much nicer finished product.  This suggestion came from Catherine who managed one of the Calico Corners stores and her suggestion involves matching horizontal stripes on a cornice board .  Even with a walking foot sewing machine [...]

Let’s make a mock roman shade cornice board

    To make a mock roman shade cornice board with matching pattern we first staple batting to the plywood box and cover the batting with muslin.  On this board which is 8 1/4″ high we want three folds so mark the muslin with lines 2 3/4″ apart.  Now let’s lay out the fabric loosely to see which [...]

Butting two cornices together in a corner

  When we are making a corner cornice where two boards come together and wrap around the corner with no returns the most effective joint will not allow any light to peep through.  If the measurements from the corner to as far out as you want the cornice to go are 125″ on the left [...]

Edge joining plywood to make a long cornice board strong

   When interior designers ask us to build upholstered cornice boards that are over 110″ long we need a way to make them strong so they won’t break while being transported to the customer’s home.  Plywood comes in 96″ long sheets so if we have an order for a cornice board 185″ long and 12″ [...]

Ceramic Medallions on the face of a cornice board

   Today we are building an upholstered cornice board that would be placed in the Elaborate Treatments of the Quality Cornices Website because we will be bolting ceramic medallions on the face of the board to support swags.  After our board is built and the location of the medallions is marked we drill holes through the plywood and insert [...]

Bendable materials for an arched top cornice board

When a shaped dust cover is required for a cornice board there are several alternatives.  We could use bendable plywood (wiggle board) which is about 1/4″ thick and not suitable for today’s application.  Another choice might be FirmaFlex, a bendable fibre board which can be ordered in six foot lengths and edge joined for longer pieces.  [...]

No sew welt cord part two

 
   On most fabrics a better solution than glue for making welt cord is Millennium Tape from Sacks Industries.  They claim that the bond gets stronger over time but you must test the tape on your fabrics first to make sure the initial bond is a good one.  It won’t work on chenile, faux suede, [...]

No sew welt cord

  
      If you are not fond of sewing there are several ways  of making welt cord using glue and tape.  The glue I use comes from R.W. Rowley and is called fringe adhesive.  It can best be used on an upholstery weight fabric that has a rubberized type of backing to prevent the glue from [...]