Pelmet I Like

Here's an interesting doorway treatment in front of Diva's Palace, a funky boutique in Providence, Rhode Island. This is a metal pelmet trimmed with beads. Although it wouldn't shade or shelter anyone, it draws the eye nicely to the shop entrance.

A pelmet is ordinarily a window rather than a door treatment. Its purpose is to conceal the curtain fixtures at the top of the window casing. This particular pelmet would look fab in my bedroom over the drapes I made recently.

I had originally thought to make a fabric-covered pelmet (the more usual type). With a swatch of the drapery fabric, I went to nearby Osgood Textile Company, which boasts the largest fabric inventory in the country--over two million yards in stock. I wandered every aisle of the cavernous space, looking for a coordinating print, but couldn't find a single fabric I liked. Since the drapery panels were a solid color, you wouldn't think I would've come up empty! But there it is.

So I think I'll quit looking for a fabric and begin daydreaming instead about a metal pelmet. Unfortunately, they're almost nonexistent today. I guess I'd have to make it myself: buy a sheet of copper or tin (relatively soft metals), snip it to size, hammer a design into it, antique the finish, and then trim it with strings of beads. A good project for some of that spare time I don't know what to do with, ha ha.