Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 05, 2025 ...

Refurbished valance project

August 29, 2025, 05:01:24 pm

Today I finished the upholstery part of the valance project.  The ones in the 2003 were a piece of cake with their rectangular fabric inserts compared to these 2-piece, curved, fabric-upholstered ones in the 2000.  One of the drivers in recovering parts of these is that we liked the original green woven fabric with the cherry.  We just wanted a more contemporary look.

  The old valance

First you remove the old, mostly-burned-out incandescent rope lighting and all the little screws holding the 2 upholstered pieces together.

 

Then you remove the staples at the end of either return and across the top that also hold the 2 pieces together.  You will have to remove a lot of the staples holding the welt cord on as well, since the ones that join the 2 pieces are underneath it.



Then you remove the staples across the top and returns, carefully peel the fabric off the foam (it's adhered with System 77), and flip it to the back.



Now you remove the staples holding the tack strip in place, and below that, the staples holding the original fabric in place.



Reverse the process

Line the bottom edge of the new fabric, with the "good" side against the back of the board, up to the lowest/widest part of the curved valance, smooth it out, and make sure it's straight (check your overhang top and sides).  Staple the new fabric to the back of the valance, somewhere between 1/4" and 1/2" from the lower edge, every 4 or so inches.  I used 1/4" staples for the fabric work and an air-powered staple gun.  Trim the new fabric to follow the curve. 



Take some 1/2" tack strip that you've snipped every 1/2 or so, place it over the new fabric, align it to the lower curved edge, and staple the heck out of it, adjusting it as you go so that its lower edge follows the contours of the board.  Lightly spray either the foam or the back of the new fabric with System 77 and let it try until tacky but not wet.  (I admit I just realized I forgot this step on the second valance.  I hope it doesn't come back to bite me, but fingers crossed that the original adhesive residue left on the foam is enough.)



Flip the fabric to the front (the good side should be visible on the front), and pull, massage, use "colorful metaphors" as needed, so the fabric covers the valance completely and overlaps the edges.  The interior corners aren't going to be perfect, especially if you're using a heavier fabric like the Ultraleather I used here, but do your best to get that lower edge looking good.  I found doing one staple at the mid top then doing each end, then going back and doing the rest of the staples worked best.  You'll have to make some relief cuts where the fabric wraps around the returns. 

   

Now screw the 2 valance pieces back together.  You'll need to press down to "squish" things since the screws are short (intentionally so that they don't poke through the front side.

Squeeze or clamp the 2 pieces and staple across the top so that the staple straddles the gap (I used 5/16" staples here).  FT did this every 4-6 inches, so I did the same.  Staple the ends of the returns in a similar fashion.  Restaple the welt cord on top.



A side by side of old vs new

 

This is my new best friend Arrow PT50


Next up, Steve with new rope lighting

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Re: Refurbished valance project

Reply #1 – August 29, 2025, 05:58:11 pm

BTW, the remnant of Ultraleather I had was 67" long, and the longer valance needed a piece 74" minimum.  I sewed a 5" piece on either end to get to the proper length and centered the finished piece so the face of the valance had no seams in it.  I used a 1/2" seam allowance, 2.7mm stitch length, walking foot, MicroTex 70 needle, and Glide 40 polyester thread.  I then topstitched the seam allowances to one side using a 3.0mm stitch length.  The Ultraleather sewed like a dream.

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Re: Refurbished valance project

Reply #2 – August 29, 2025, 08:16:10 pm

That looks great Michelle!

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Re: Refurbished valance project

Reply #3 – August 30, 2025, 12:04:07 am

Did you reinstall accent lighting?

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Re: Refurbished valance project

Reply #4 – August 30, 2025, 07:53:39 am

Looks like you have a long arm quilter

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Re: Refurbished valance project

Reply #5 – August 30, 2025, 08:17:29 am

Quote from: Peter – August 30, 2025, 12:04:07 am

Did you reinstall accent lighting?

It's "in process" 

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Re: Refurbished valance project

Reply #6 – August 30, 2025, 08:18:53 am

I wish y'all were closer, you guys would be handy to have around.  Looks great!

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Re: Refurbished valance project

Reply #7 – August 30, 2025, 07:45:07 pm

We're waiting for the drapes to dry (cleaned them with Folex and our Little Green this morning), so no photos yet of the lighted final product, but here are the replacement rope lights.

We used 33' 12V Warm White LED Rope Light Spool - Birddog Lighting for the rope lights.  We would say the color temperature is somewhere between 3500-3700K, so cooler than the original incandescent, but still on the warm side.  During a test-light of the finished product in situ, we think the light warms up even more thanks to the surrounding wood.

We purchased some additional parts from BirdDog, but only used the end caps.  The power connector on the rope lighting was pretty large diameter, so Steve cut it off.  That also negated using the 12V power cords we'd purchased, since they were the same large diameter.  The cable clamps they claimed were 1/2" were actually 3/8" and too small diameter to mount the rope.

So Steve pulled out the power wires from the tube and soldered on the harvested leads from the old rope lighting.  He shrink-tubed both the individual leads, then another shrink tube over the entire thing as it exited the rope tube.  Being LEDs, you do need to apply a 12VDC power source to make sure you have the leads correct.



Once again, Ace is the place for the proper sized cable clamps to mount the rope lighting on the back of the valance Gardner Bender 1/2 in. D Plastic Cable Clamp 12 pk Mfr# PPC-1550 - Ace Hardware



We followed the pattern of the original rope, which started and ended about 4" from the end of the valance.  Fortunately, the BirdDog/Brilliant rope lighting can be cut roughly every 4 1/2 to 4 3/4", so it worked out that the new rope lengths were almost the same.  It takes a bit of studying the assembly to see where you can safely cut, because they don't mark every cut zone.  I used 5/16" staples with my favorite air stapler to attach the clamps (after discovering the 1/4" were just a tad too short to stay in reliably.)  We did have some 6x1/4" wood screws that would also have worked, but the staples were easier on the hands to apply.

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