New House Project: Pelmet boxes

And, moving on to windows! (Super long post - read at your own risk of being bored to tears)

I pretty much think that Jenny at Little Green Notebook can do no wrong. She is the queen of DIY and always gives me tons of ideas and inspiration. More than anything, she gives me the confidence to attempt projects that I wouldn't otherwise because she makes them sound so easy!

She did a tutorial a few years ago on Easy Pelmet Boxes and I have kept it in mind. Most of the windows on our first floor have plantation shutters (in not-great shape, but still), but the upstairs was a blank slate. I wanted to add some color and fun to our rooms on the ever-important budget, and this seemed like a do-able project.

My only tiny complaint about some of the LGN projects is that the details can be scant, I think mostly because she is a designer and just "knows" this stuff, and I am OCD and thrive on details and the ever-important plan. She has a couple of other posts about pelmet boxes if you search her site, and I also Googled about pelmet boxes to see if I could find any more details about the hanging, in particular. Another good post is from Hi Sugarplum! about building pelmet boxes based on the LGN technique.

So ... I had 5 windows, different sizes, different situations (some in rooms with crown molding, some not). My mother suggested I just make them all the same, but you know me - I love making things more difficult than necessary. I sketched out the details, as you can see here, after measuring the width of the windows and the space between the top of the window and the crown / ceiling. We also have roller shades in each of the windows, so the pelmet box needed to be tall enough to cover that hardware.

For a standard single window, I went with 43 inches wide across the front and 2.5 inches deep. For the rooms with crown molding, the pelmet boxes are 14 inches tall and in the room without they are 15 inches tall.

 

I went about gathering my supplies and ended up talking with a retired interior decorator at my local hardware store. Who thought I was crazy. A pelmet box out of foam core? With duct tape? He was skeptical, to say the least. I was persistent. 

You'll need batting to wrap the foam core box and pad the fabric. I got this on sale at JoAnn - 50% off that week with another coupon on top. It was pretty thin and because I had plenty, I decided to double it (again with the making things difficult). Just do yourself a favor and get thicker batting. You will need to have a rough idea of the yardage you'll need (measure across from edge to edge of box with some extra at the ends) so you don't have to piece it together.

And, of course you'll need fabric. If your windows are standard size, it won't take much. Standard upholstery fabric is 54 inches wide, which works perfectly. If you have a larger window or a double window, you will need to turn the fabric 90 degrees and run it sideways, so keep that in mind if your fabric has a pattern (otherwise you would have to piece it together to get the right width). For my standard windows, I used pieces of fabric that were 54 inches wide and 18-19 inches tall. Don't do this. You want to be more generous with the height of the fabric, maybe 3-4 inches extra on the top and bottom so you have plenty to wrap around the back and staple. You can trim the excess, but I had a few that barely fit and were hard to staple.

And then you need foam core. Jenny wasn't specific as to the thinner or thicker board, but I went with the thicker board (1/2 inch). It doesn't add much weight, but does add stability and gives something more for the staple to sink into. This part of the project gets kind of expensive - I used 10 sheets that were 20x30 inches and they were $5.99 each at Michael's. I did wait for a day with a 20% off total purchase coupon, which helped. I couldn't find another local place that had it cheaper and I didn't want to pay shipping. Measure and plan carefully before you purchase, but it is roughly 2 sheets per standard window. I had very few scraps leftover.

Measure twice (or thrice) and cut once. I drew out each pelmet box on paper and the size of the pieces I would need and then cut them with a yard stick and utility knife, keeping the stacks separate. And, don't forget to take the depth of the foam core into account with your measurements - I wanted the boxes to be 2.5 inches deep, so the side pieces were 2 inches because the front piece was already 0.5 inches deep.

The retired decorator at the hardware store suggested I use hot glue in addition to duct tape, which I think was a good idea. I laid out the front pieces, put a little glue between, and smooshed them together. Then, glue for the side pieces and attach on ends (on the back, not the sides - you don't want to make it wider unless you planned it that way). 

And then I duct taped everything I had glued for extra stability. I used white just in case it would show through lighter colored fabric.

 

The retired decorator also suggested I add some braces / brackets in the corners, another good idea. I used the scrap pieces for this - just hot glued a long piece across the joints where I joined the boards. 

 

And, glued a piece snug in each corner. 

This was for the double wide window, so I added another brace in the middle to help prevent bowing, and braced it on the sides.

Everything felt really stable and secure - so far, so good. My decorator friend suggested I use spray adhesive to adhere the batting to the foam core so it wouldn't slip around. I just used the Elmer's version I found at the hardware store because it was cheap and it seemed to work just fine. I sprayed lightly (in my garage), then my mom helped me slowly lay down the batting and mostly work the wrinkles out, trying to keep it even on all sides. I also sprayed lightly between the second layer of batting. Let this dry for awhile, preferably outside because it's kind of stinky.

And then, the fun part! Stapling! I just have a standard staple gun with standard staples - talk to your hardware store friend if you need one and tell them the purpose. Center the pelmet box on your fabric, then wrap the fabric around one end and staple. Pull it pretty tightly, smoothing out the wrinkles, and staple the other end. Do the ends first, then do the top and bottom the same way, starting in the center and working toward the ends. Be generous with your stapling - you almost can't have too many. Some won't stick very well in the batting and foam core, but if you have enough, it will be fine. 

 

In the corners you will need to trim the batting so the fabric doesn't bunch up weirdly. After trial and error, I ended up cutting a kind of triangle at the front corner and removing that, then trimming the rest pretty close to the edge of the box.
 

 Wrap your fabric as nicely as you can and staple, staple, staple. You will need a lot on the corners to keep everything nice and secure. You could probably add more duct tape if you wanted to, but I didn't.

 

Ta-da!

 The patterned fabric (x2 windows) was for our master bedroom. The pink fabric was for Ellen's Big Girl room, and the white was for her bathroom. I decided the pink and white needed a little embellishment, so added a border of thin grosgrain ribbon, probably 1/4 inch wide. I measured the border and marked it with chalk to have a straight line to follow. I just used a standard craft glue and tried to keep the ribbon straight.

Fold and glue the corners carefully, then use your pantry ingredients to weigh them down! (Excuse the spots on the camera - it spent too much time in someone's pocket).

 

I was concerned about hanging these and didn't want to drill a ton of holes in my wall, and also more holes = more risk of the boxes not being level. I just dreamed up this solution, my hardware store friend helped me find what I needed, and it has worked fine so far!

I used: medium screw eyes (7/8 inch), screw hooks (10 lbs max, 1 3/8 inch), and plastic anchors for the wall that fit the screw hooks. You'll also need a drill with the right size drill bit for the anchors. I ended up using 2 screw eyes, hooks and anchors per standard window, 3 each on the double wide window. Buy extra anchors because some of them get squirrly. 

You can eyeball this, but just try to make the screw eyes the same distance from the top for each individual box. You just want it to be far enough down that your screw hook won't show from above, and that the screw hook can still reach the hole (so, pretty close to the back edge). I poked the screw eye through the fabric, batting and into the foam core. I pulled it back out, covered the screw threads with Gorilla Glue, and put it back in the hole, holding it briefly until it sticks a bit. Turn it so the hole is parallel to the floor, and let dry completely.

I hope you can see the method to my madness. My mom and I were very "accurate" about this: one of us would hold up the pelmet box, a standard distance from the ceiling, and the other would step back to see if it was level. If it looked fine, then we blindly stuck our arm and a pencil up under the box and tried to draw the edge of the screw eyes on each side. Drill the pilot hole, insert the plastic anchor, and screw in the screw hook (twist it in as far as you can so your pelmet box is as close to the wall as possible). Cross your fingers, hang the pelmet box and hope for the best.

Taking pictures of windows is hard, but I think you can get a feel for the end result:

 

And, finally, a little before and after. You can do it, right? Send me a picture!