Wednesday, January 20, 2010
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By Owner, Window Bonnets
To create a color stream (theme) throughout you home, select a color you are using in one room and restate it differently in adjoining rooms (an example would be to use the sofa color in your den and use the same color for the dining room seat fabric). Many of our customers have used their dining room or living couch fabric in their cornice. Great coordination. There are many examples in the Gallery of Homes.http://www.windowbonnets.com/html/gallery_of_homes.html
Utilizing the same color through out the rest of your home in large or small degrees such as decorator items, placemats, lamp shades, rugs, etc. will complete the perfect color stream for your home.
Cheers,Janhttp://www.windowbonnets.com/
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
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By Owner, Window Bonnets
What fabric should I use? I get this question quite often. Officially, ANY fabric will do, cottons, silks, jacquards, corduroy, twills, linens, upholstery, drapery, chinelles (not sure of that spelling) you find it, then it can be used. But . . .Sometimes I know the question is really, "What is the best fabric to use?" or "What is the easiest fabric to use?" To that I can absolutely say, any fabric that is a medium weight or a bit on the stiffer side will be easy to tuck, easy to cut, easy to work with in general and hides any imperfections in the styrofoam and the glued seams.However I am a realist and just as sure as I tell you a medium weight you will find a beautiful scarf-like fabric that you want to use. Well, no problem. Typically with that type of fabric, I would suggest gathering the fabric so you have a bit of a bunch to tuck into the groove or even pleating if you are so inclined, but if that is still not tight enough, my recommendation would be to take a trip to your local hardware store. In my neck of the woods, the Ace hardware stores are on every other corner. At any rate, go there and look for some string/rope that is a bit thicker than the tuck grove. Then cut a piece the length of your cornice and tuck that in for a nice tight fit for your fabric. Also do not be afraid to use the same fabric for all three contours of your cornice. It looks great! Covering the back is a personal preference. You can use the same fabric as the bottom contour or just use a matching solid color. All you really want to do is cover the white of the styrofoam in case the lower part of the back side of the cornice is visible from the outside.Hope that helps. If you have any pictures of your creations, I am always open to using them on the website. Why not let all your friends see your home on the web!!Happy decorating!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
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By Owner, Window Bonnets
11/25/09The Window Bonnets cornice kit using the standard endcaps will stand out from the wall a full 5". Normally this is sufficient space to allow your verticals to turn all the way around without touching the back of the cornice. However, in some instances, this may not be enough--perhaps you have verticals and some kind of drapes mounted, or perhaps just the drapes alone require more than the 5". In these cases, we had a great adjustable bracket that actually could slide out in quarter inch increments to a maximum of 7.5". Unfortunately, our vendors prices now prohibit the manufacturing of this type of bracket. So today's message is how to mount your cornice using the standard 5" bracket but achieve a distance from the wall at say 6" or even 7".The brackets come with two screws and two screw sleeves, these sleeves would be used if you were mounting only into the dry wall and not a wood stud or the metal edge generally found around most windows. Well now those sleeves can also be used to secure what I will call your "extra depth spacer" piece. We recommend that you cut a piece of wood, approximately 2.75" x 2" x . Mark the wall where you would actually mount the 5" bracket. Place the wood "spacer" piece centered over this mark. Drill two holes approximately .5" from the outer edges and center of the height of the "spacer". Use the screw sleeves in the wall for these holes (if you have not hit a wood stud or the metal rim of the window casing) so the screws holding the spacer will be tight and secure to the wall. Mount the bracket to the "spacer" piece as usual. Your cornice will now sit this additional distance from the wall. Remember to add this extra amount to the endcap so they hit the wall thus closing the cornice box.This economy has presented many challenges for everyone and this is one way we are trying to keep our product economical yet flexible for all needs. As always happy decorating and keep those pictures coming in! We love to show your ideas.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
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By Owner, Window Bonnets
Sometimes your window treatment needs to do more. In the window featured above, the customer felt the window was rather small for the width of the wall. Any regular window treatment would make it look even smaller compared to this wide wall.However, in this case, she decided to do 4 things that greatly "enlarged" the window to the wall, thus balancing the look and creating an effective optical illusion.
Here is what she did:
1. Made the actual cornice, a full 12" wider on each side of the actual window width. Thus this 48" window opening became a 6 foot wide cornice.
2. The use of the heavier fabric on the top and bottom, a burgundy-red velvet, made the overall cornice seem larger and more substantial than the 12" height that it is.
3. The accent feature of a natural leather piece and concho focus the eye to the center increasing the illusion of a great wide window with the cornice being so wide.
4. Finally, she used the back tuck groove to gather a sheer from the outer edge of the cornice to just over the edge of the actual window. The sheer does not move, but it further disguises the actual edge of the window.
All in all this is a wonderful use of the cornice, fabric and accents to "fix" a design issue that had been a problem. The cornice, fabric, leather and sheers at approximately $165 is significantly cheaper than having a new wider window installed in the room.
