Taking Things to New Heights

Here we go again!  Trying to customize our builder's grade home.  After painting the living and dining rooms, our plan was to raise the height of our curtain rods...like this picture I pinned a while back that I saw on Pinterest.

 

But then there is that issue with all of that extra space above the windows.
 

Yet again I ran across a pin on Pinterest that fixed that problem...

 

MOLDING...(sigh)

 

I love decorative details and adding molding over our windows would definitely give it that custom look.  So, I told my husband to get out his tools and prepare to build something nice for is wife ;) 

 

Molding can get expensive and I have too many other projects that I want to do to just shell out a bunch of money on this one project, so we got creative!

 

We went to Lowe's and got (1) 1/4" piece of plywood and had it cut into 10" strips, according to my husbands measurements (which we later learned was too tall...8" strips looked much better)! 

 

We also needed ...

• 3" crown molding - we needed (2) 12' pieces to cover both rooms
• Shoe Molding - (2) 12' pieces
• Loctite Construction Adhesive for Molding and Paneling- (2) tubes
• Trim Paint - (1) quart

First, we cut the plywood to the width of each window, sanded the edges and installed using Loctite construction adhesive.  I was very impressed with how well this adhesive worked!  We don't have a nail gun in our DIY kit and using brad nails means a whole lot more work and nail holes that would have to be puttied.

Then we placed the shoe molding above the existing window molding and on top of the plywood to cover the gap between the boards.

The trickiest part of the whole project was giving the crown molding 45 degree angles using a skill saw, but my husband works his magic every time!! He hand measured the 45 degree angles....a little trig was involved ;) He then set the skill saw to the 45 degree setting and cut along the lines that he marked.

 

We gave the Loctite time to cure and then painted the molding using semi-gloss trim paint....we think it turned out beautifully!