Living Room Update: DIY Window Trim

I think I might have mentioned the living room trim project at least a dozen times, and now I can say it's finally complete!

Here are the windows before. I tried to live with them, but I found myself shying away from photographing this side of the room because they just seemed so unfinished.

My first thought was to add drapery panels between each window from the top of the transom down to the floor. That would have worked to hide most of the drywall around the windows, but drapery that tall between every window is overwhelming. It's also very expensive! Trimming the windows gave them a custom look for much cheaper than four to six custom drapery panels. The total cost of the trim was what one French pleated 140 inch panel would have cost!

We used pre-primed boards to frame each window and a piece of crown molding on top, which is what we did in the formal dining room and study doors of our last house. The only problem was that the drywall around these windows was not even. If the board next to the window was flush at the bottom, it overlapped the top of the window by up to an inch.

My husband wanted to scratch the entire project and return the wood we had not yet cut, but I ran back up to Home Depot to stare at the wood trim and come up with a creative fix. If you have read my blog for a while you know this is not the first time I refuse to take no for an answer when a project doesn't go right! I found these L-shaped trim pieces that would just cover the imperfect areas where the wood did not meet the edge of the window. It's not the normal way to add trim to a window, but it works! You can see that extra piece of trim that wraps around the corners in the picture below.

I am thrilled about the result almost as much as I am about it just being done! I was on this hamster wheel of putty, caulk, and sand for weeks until I was satisfied enough to finally paint. All of those uneven edges and walls caused a caulking nightmare. I told my husband if he ever says I can hide something with caulk again then he will be the one caulking!

You would think I'd never try to attempt this again, but now we are working on the Juliet balcony trim I mentioned in my last post.

This time it will be simple trim under the balcony railing...simple...lol. We'll see how this turns out next weekend!