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 [...]

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 [...]

Finishing the upholstered headboard

   Now that we have built the frame, glued on the 2″ foam, covered the foam with batting and upholstered the headboard with muslin we can apply the finish fabric.  The fabric is first pinned in place and stretched tight so we can take a look to see if it is positioned properly before we begin stapling [...]

Building the frame for an upholstered headboard

  We have a work order to build an upholstered headboard that is 70″ high and 62″ wide.  Normally we will ask the customer to give us the height of the top of the box spring off the floor (the bottom of the headboard will be an inch higher than the top of the box spring) [...]

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, [...]