This has to be one of my favorite DIY projects to date. I love getting custom window treatments for my clients, but typically when it comes to my own personal project I don’t have a whole lot of wiggle room for them. I like to leave the serious stuff to the pros, but I knew that something like a fabric covered cornice board was something we could easily tackle and save some $$$$.

When you have a bay window it deserves to become a focal point. I knew right away that plan panels on the sides of it just would not do.

Here is the before:

I know there are lots of different tutorials for how to build cornice boards and even lots of materials you can do them. We decided to go for wood so that they would go the distance. It was a pretty easy project and in an afternoon we were left with this:

Then I used my tutorial for fretwork napkins along with some fabric glue, hot glue gun and ribbon and got this final look:

{Yes, there are 4 elephants butts in this picture. Totally have a problem. }

DIY steps here and here.
Cost: $20 (for Wood), $10 (for batting), $20 (for an extra window panel to use to cover the boards), $20 (for ribbon. I did a ribbon border on all of the panels and then the fretwork design.)
Time: 3 hours for building and wrapping cornices, 3 hours for adding all of that ribbon

All in all I still give this project two thumbs up and it’s holding up really well.