A valance or cornice is the crown of a window treatment. It hides the hardware and the headrail, adds height and architecture, and gives a room a finished, tailored look that shades or drapery alone cannot. Done well it reads as part of the building. Done cheaply it looks like a costume. We fabricate both, custom, to the proportions of your specific window.
Valance vs cornice — which you need
A valance is a soft fabric top treatment — gathered, pleated, or tailored — that adds softness and movement. A cornice is a structured, upholstered box (often wood-framed) that reads architectural and crisp. Valances suit traditional and transitional rooms; cornices suit cleaner, more contemporary or tailored spaces. We help you choose based on the room and the treatment underneath.
The right top treatment makes a standard window look intentional. The wrong scale makes the whole wall look off.
— Glamour Decorating, from 30 years of NYC installs
What they do for the room
They conceal headrails, motors, and brackets so the mechanics disappear. They add apparent height, which matters in rooms with lower ceilings. And they layer with drapery and shades to create depth — a cornice over a motorized shade, or a soft valance over drapery panels, reads far richer than a bare window.
Proportion is everything
The single most common mistake is scale: a top treatment that is too short, too tall, or too deep for the window throws the whole composition off. We pattern each one to the window's exact width, the ceiling height, and the treatment beneath it, so it looks built-in rather than added on.