Wooden pelmets

[CounsellorTroi]

I live in a 1930’s house. We have wooden box pelmets with the curtain rails underneath. Are they irredeemably dated? Getting rid of them would be a faff and I would probably have to get poles made for the two front windows as they are a)huge and b) curved.

Any advice?

I just got rid of some to put up shutters but would probably have left alone otherwise. They were pretty unobtrusive plain white painted wood. Do yours blend in or are they noticeable?

Have a look on Pinterest, there's loads of ideas to make them updated. If you like them, keep them. I actually like the idea really, because poles and curtain rings etc aren't really that nice to look at.

I did have to replaster after ripping them down, it wasn’t a quick and easy job btw!

When my parents moved us into a Victorian 'fixer upper' back when I was five, there were pelmets in every room.

When they were ripped down (with about as much filth as if they had starting cleaning a chimney), the architrave was damaged, as the pelmets had originally gone in with the house.

There was a lot of remoulding and replastering going on before the actual curtains could be put up.

I think you have quite a few options.

They look nice matched with the curtains. Either painted white with white curtains, or covered in a matching fabric. I think this works best with plain white/neutral coloured curtains.

Or you could replace with new wooden pelmets to match the style of your room. They’re really simple to make and so long as you make them to the same size as the existing you shouldn’t have any damage to repair.