I will admit, I’m overly fond of gingerbread. Not just the yummy cookies or cake-like bread, but detail, detail, detail. I’d been drooling over the molding below for YEARS (ever since my husband started work on our library; whose development I think I’ll blog if I ever finish the office saga!) and with my office, I had an excuse to buy it!
If you hadn’t guessed by now, my favorite color is purple. So I used a purple wood stain for the molding. Here is a picture of the molding before and after:
And here’s a nice close-up:
I never stained wood in my life until my husband re-did our dining room. There’s something very soothing about it: you spread the stain on thick with a foam brush, then take a rag and wipe all the excess off. I believe I did two coats of these and was glad I did, as the second coat really made the carving pop.
Once the stain was dry, my husband took over and nailed it to the window:
I’d like to take a moment to interject how LONG this project took. The pictures of the stained wood are from August 13, 2012. The pictures of the molding on the window was October 27, 2012. Office perfection does not happen overnight!
Now, if you look closely, you’ll see that there’s a second, plainer strip of molding around the window. That is because, when we put up the rose molding, we realized that it did not entirely cover the gap between the window and the wall (the old molding was wider). My brilliant husband had the idea to add a second, narrow strip of molding. It was a happy accident, as I think it looks a lot nicer with it! Alas, I don’t have a before picture, but here’s a picture of the doors:
I love it! The only problem is, I like LOOKING at the window molding so much I haven’t had the heart to put up any curtains, and it’s a year and a half later!
Amie Rose Rotruck 