Valance Victory! And a Little Bloodshed.

I finally came up with a solution for a problem that has been bothering me in my sister's room.  To be clear, my sister doesn't live with me, I just fear her wrath if I don't call it that.  In fact let's just pretend that no one else has ever slept in the room and no one ever will.  It'll be easier that way.

I had recently installed a roller shade for a little light-blocking action.  No one likes to be forced out of bed at the crack of dawn!  I covered the ugly white plastic shade using a little gray menswear fabric and spray adhesive but there was a problem..........when I covered the shade, I wrapped the fabric around and glued it to the back for staying power.  And it resulted in this:

See the roll part at the top of the window?  When the shade rolls up, it shows the back and the extra inch of fabric I wrapped around it. Not attractive.  Not to mention the roll itself isn't winning any beauty pageants.

I thought about just attaching more fabric to the back, but I didn't think that the roller would work properly with another layer of fabric, not to mention it wouldn't solve the problem of the ugly roller.

This kept me up a night.  For real.  I thought about a valance but the clearance between the window frame and the wall is almost nothing (it's actually 3/4 of an inch) and I couldn't think of a way to mount it in that small of an area.  You can sort of see how small of an area I had to work with in the picture above.

After a few nights of tossing and turning I figured the only solution that would cover that unfinished-looking mess would be a valance.  Since I couldn't figure out a way to make it, I did the only thing I could:  I outsourced it. 

I gave my measurements to an incredibly talented local woodworker who whipped it up in mere minutes. On top of being talented, he also works on the cheap.  Unfortunately for all of you, I'm pretty much the only client he works for.  Because he's my husband.  Ha. 

This is what he came up with:

The valance screws into the wall through the tabs at the top. 

Now that my husband had done the heavy lifting, it was my turn to make it look pretty.

I used some fabric that I had bought from Joann's and some more of that wonderful spray adhesive.

In progress:

I cut the fabric and wrapped the whole thing like a present, spraying the wood with the adhesive as I went.

When I finished, it looked a little plain so I decided to fancy it up a bit.  I had used a nailhead detail on the headboard in the room, so I figured that it would be nice to use it again somewhere in the room.

There aren't any pictures of this part. The nails were longer than the thickness of the plywood and I hammered one into my finger.  Let's just say I was soooo over documenting the process once that happened. Luckily, it turned out really nice so the near-fatal injury didn't prompt me to throw the whole damn thing through the kitchen window.

Here it is:

Lessons learned?  My husband can do anything and I need to pay more attention to the project I'm working on and less attention to the TV.  But I do love it.  This is my favorite room in the house.  I'll show you the whole thing soon..........

Lindsay.