DIY:Building a Cornice Board

After almost 25 years in the same house, my parents JUST got around to updating their kitchen. I will likely do a whole post on their kitchen in the near future ( Can we say jealous?). Well this weekend my dad and I set out to make cornice boards for both the window over the sink and the sliding glass door at the back of the room.

Prior to getting started I turned to my friend Google to look up various methods. My dad is SUPER handy and did not like any of the methods we found. So I am sharing how we did it, although I am no way stating those ways are inferior. I simply followed the man with the plan :)

Because the slider is over sized, we were limited on what wood we could use. We did not want to use MDF for the simple fact that it weighs a TON. We decided to go with Pine board: its light weight, about an inch thick and was the perfect length (8 feet).

So my dad assumed we would be making straight cornice board like so:

But true to fashion, I had to make things difficult. I wanted to add a bit of dimension like so:

Picture from Window Fashions

My mom agreed and since it is her kitchen, my dad finally came around!

We purchased 4 yards of fabric at Joann's due to the length of the slider. The fabric was 54" wide so we were able to get both cornices out of the width.

First we cut both boards to the proper width for each of the windows. We measure in the desired length ( 8 inches), marked it with a sharpie and began our curve. We used a piece of trim to trace out the curve...we held it at the pre-made line,  bent the trim to create the curve and traced it with a sharpie. We then sawed along the line and sanded the edge.

Then we added the top and connecting sides to create something that looked like this:

I wanted to add batting to make it look more plush however it took away from the clean curvature. So we simply upholstered the cornice with the fabric. Isn't it a fun print?

Now pardon the next two pictures...they are BAD. I didn't have my camera so I was forced to rely on my iPhone and the lighting was causing all sorts of shadows. I will post clearer pictures in my kitchen update post!