Building a valance

I need to make some valances to hide the head rails on some verticals and miniblinds. I plan to use the polyurathane molded molding. I made one and cut and glued on some returns to bring the pattern back to the wall. No problem, but I just made the returns as deep as the molding and nailed the completed piece flat to the wall. Same as you'd do a chair rail. Looks OK, no problem so far.

But in some instances i'd like to have the valance clear the wall by perhaps 2". That means the returns need to be deeper, and I can nail the completed piece to the wall either. I need to come up with a way to reinforce the returns, maybe some 3/8 baltic birch ply glued on, as well as a mounting method.

My thoughts at this point are angle brackets screwed to the wall and then screwed to the ply reinforcement. Don't really like that one though.

Any better ideas are wlcome!

This will be more work, but the appearance will be neater; hang the valances on the wall with keyhole style clips mortised into your birch plywood extensions. If your valance ends aren't on studs, use "molly" (?sp) bolts on the wall to hold up the end, otherwise use a wood screw which is set into the stud. make sure both your screws are the same distance from the ceiling and build a little float into one of the keyhole clips to allow for some final tweaking to get the valance looking good relative to the window and blinds.

Now that you mention it, I have a router bit that cuts keyhole slots for picture frames and the like. I've only used it a few times and not for some time at that. I'll have to make a template for the router and make a few test pieces.

I'll also be stopping at the home center to see if there's something made for curtains that I can adapt.

Thanks for the reminder.