Advice Needed on Cornice

[Todd Willhoit]

Friends of mine have a need for a wall-to-wall cornice to cover the curtain rod in the living room of their new home. For whatever reason two professional window covering outfits have declined or backed out of the job so they have asked me, the hobbiest, to get it done.

Firstly, I know squat about cornices. Secondly, it is almost 17' long. As you can see in the attached picture, the cornice will almost touch the ceiling, so top access is not available. Mounting brackets will attach to the wall studs and be screwed to the cornice from underneath. They had previously purchased 1x8 red oak for the main beam and desire additional trim on the top and bottom as well as something to cover the seams. I expect it will be heavy.

I have some questions:
1. The walls are the standard orange peel texture. Would it be better to leave a small 1/8" gap between the cornice and the walls, or get it close and putty it in like some of the trim guys do?

2. I thought I would box-in the top to add strength, but this will add weight. Are there any opinions as to how best do this?

3. I expect the cornice will be installed in three pieces with a seam a third of the way from each end. I thought I would cover the front of the seam with something decorative and provide some means on the rear to solidly tie the joints together. My concern is that one section could start to bow in or out if not joined to the adjacent piece. Any thoughts?

4. What is a reasonanble rate to charge for this considering that they are purchasing the material? If two pros have declined the job, I'm guessing it is more difficult than the average cornice.

Thanks for any advice!
Todd

[Todd Willhoit]

Comments anyone??

[Paul Greathouse]

Hopefully this will help some.

Friends of mine have a need for a wall-to-wall cornice to cover the curtain rod in the living room of their new home. For whatever reason two professional window covering outfits have declined or backed out of the job so they have asked me, the hobbiest, to get it done.

Firstly, I know squat about cornices. Secondly, it is almost 17' long. As you can see in the attached picture, the cornice will almost touch the ceiling, so top access is not available. Mounting brackets will attach to the wall studs and be screwed to the cornice from underneath. They had previously purchased 1x8 red oak for the main beam and desire additional trim on the top and bottom as well as something to cover the seams. I expect it will be heavy. If the house framed conventionally, there should be ceiling joists ending on top of the wall that the cornice will mount to. If so, you could screw the top piece up to the ceiling and into the joists. This would be much stronger than hanging it from brackets.
Then you could pockethole the front to the top from the back side.
You could allow the top to stick out past the front enough to put a crown moulding between the top and front.

I have some questions:
1. The walls are the standard orange peel texture. Would it be better to leave a small 1/8" gap between the cornice and the walls, or get it close and putty it in like some of the trim guys do? I would scribe the ends to the wall and cut the ends with a 1 degree bevel so that there is a sharper edge to meet the wall. Also make the entire cornice as tight as possible to force it into the wall on both ends.

2. I thought I would box-in the top to add strength, but this will add weight. Are there any opinions as to how best do this?

3. I expect the cornice will be installed in three pieces with a seam a third of the way from each end. I thought I would cover the front of the seam with something decorative and provide some means on the rear to solidly tie the joints together. My concern is that one section could start to bow in or out if not joined to the adjacent piece. Any thoughts? To prevent the joints on the front from seperating you could pockethole and glue the 3 front pieces togeather from the backside. In addition, pocketholing the ends togeather will make a nice tight seam that shouldn't seperate. If your careful it may be possible to match the grains at the ends of the boards well enough that you wouldn't need to apply trim over the seam.

4. What is a reasonanble rate to charge for this considering that they are purchasing the material? If two pros have declined the job, I'm guessing it is more difficult than the average cornice. Trim carpentry varies by area, $25 to $30/hr would be a fair labor price for that type of work in my area.

Thanks for any advice!
Todd

[Todd Willhoit]

Paul,
Thanks for the thorough and helpfful advice.

The house is two story, and the ceiling joists appear to run the wrong direction. I really like your idea though, and will locate the joists more thoroughly when I go back over to get some final measurements.

I thought about trimming the ends with a bevel and scribing, but then I thought about the next time someone paints the room. One of my pet-peeves is to see paint slopped on the trim - but maybe I've seen one to many lazy painters. My idea with a small gap was that the wall could be painted without getting paint on the cornice.

I also like your idea to use pocket-holes to fix the sections to each other. I had not thought about this, probably because I don't have a pocket-hole jig. This will work great, especially of I can get a good match with the grain.

Todd

[Lee Schierer]

With a little effort you might be able to find an 18' piece of wood for your front face piece that can be cut exactly to the 17' size.

I would attach some cleats to the ceiling at the ceiling joists if they run perpendicular or with good drywall anchors if the joists run the other way. Then run screws through your front piece into the cleats. Hide those screws with the small crown molding you show in your sketch. I would flatten the rough wall texture where my face board is going to go to get a no gap fit on each end. Unless you are painting the cornice you don't want to use putty or spackle

[Rob Fisher]

I would suggest to do things a bit differently than others. First off I would leave a gap at the ends. Personally I think that scribing things is almost never attractive as it is difficult to get a good fit, and therefore a good look. Second I like the look of a reveal.

If you cannot find or do not want to hassle with one solid piece, at 17' it would definitely be heavy and potentially hard to maneuver even with two people, I would break it down into sections as you have suggested. I would determine the length of those sections based to the windows beyond, I would not simply break it down in thirds unless that matched up with the geometry of the window. And at the seems I would express them with trim, or a double chamfer or something. It could be a challenge matching grain and there will always be a visible joint there, so why not express it. And I love the idea of pocket screws to connect the sections. Everything can be made in the shop, test fit and then assemble in the field.

This is just my opinion,

Rob

[Todd Willhoit]

Excellent ideas!

Lee,
I'm sure I could find an 18' piece at the local hardwood supplier, but transporting it is an issue, not to mention man-handling the thing. It would be ideal, though...perfect grain match.

Rob,
Good idea on matching the seams with the windows and making the seam "decorative". When you say double chamfer, are you meaning to chamfer both sides of the seam?

Pocket holes really do sound like the cat's meow for this project. Any recommendations on which jig to buy?

As an alternative for the seams I thought about one of the bolted "dogbone" type connections. It seems like I saw a thread about them a few days ago, but I don't know what they are called. It looks something like the wooden train track connector below, except using specialty bolts.

woodconnectors.jpg

Todd

[Brian Cover]

Paul,
Thanks for the thorough and helpfful advice.

The house is two story, and the ceiling joists appear to run the wrong direction. I really like your idea though.....

That is not a problem. There are hollow wall dry wall anchors that support over 50lbs each in a vertical position. Your wood is no where near that weight per foot, so insert one anchor per foot and hang form the ceiling.

[William Duffer]

This is how I have built a cornice before, it hides the seams and it distracts from the different grain pattern. Put sides and a top on it for stability. It looks good and its better than a simple flat face piece. Get creative with it, there is a million ways to build one. Google them and see all the different ways to do it. Reveal, no reveal a lazy painter is going to get paint on it either way. As far as per hour rate I never tell a person how much they are worth. And I would never charge anyone for the extra time for OJT. In this situation I would charge a flat rate.

[Nick Laeder]

Why not a torsion box shelf, like a floating shelf, and then hang anything you want off the front of it. The torsion box shelves I've built have been strong enough to do chinups on, if I could still do chinups.