Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Building a cornice

This one's going to be short, sweet, and relatively boring, folks!

I realized pretty quickly after pulling out the plywood I had leftover from another project that it was just not going to work for my cornices.  It's just much, much too rough on both sides, and with the added problem of the edges showing (and therefore needing some sort of "hiding" fix since you can see the plies), I finally convinced the miser in me to just make life easier and buy the right thing for the job.

While I was at Home Depot picking up the cornice board wood, I also purchased the plywood for the headboard.  Wow, did I luck out on that one!  They had a couple of pallet loads of  "special purchase"11/32x4x8 A/C plywood for only $25!  (I was expecting to shell out around $40.)   Oh, and puh-lease, lumber guys, what's this 11/32 crap?!?   I stood there looking at that number and trying to figure out what normal number  it would approximate,  then gave up on doing the math in my head and took out my handy tape measure (that I go nowhere without) and it measured 3/4" (which, btw, is much larger than 11/32).  Why can't they just call lumber by its actual measurements?

We left off yesterday with my paper cut-outs, so the next step is to use that to trace the shape onto the wood...

DIY cornice

then grab your jig saw and cut it out.


I didn't want or need these cornices to be very deep, as the curtains are going to be lightweight and the rod and rings just your average, cafe rod size, so I used a 2"x3" along the top of each cornice and finished out the sides with pieces cut from the same material as the face...

DIY cornice

It's all glued and nailed together snugly, and I really do have all of them built...

DIY cornice

...and I was so excited to get them primed and base-coated, but the @#$!#$!@ wood putty I used to fill the nail holes needs 24 hours to dry if you're using anything but latex paint.  I always use B-I-N primer, which is white pigmented shellac, for...practically everything.   Fun fact:  Did you know shellac is made from bugs?  The lac bug, to be precise!   I love, love, love the stuff because it cleans up with ammonia rather than mineral spirits and it leaves a super smooth finish for your next coat of paint.  Which I will be applying...

Manana!  




1 comment:

  1. Ya know, you told me I had to come here every single day to see what the progress was. I have a new suggestion. Just send me an e-mail where there *is* some progress, o.k.?

    Wish I'd managed to get Julia up there before the orange zebra stripes disappeared. I thought they were cool even though I could never imagine actually *sleeping* with all that visual noise in the room.

    K

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