Pictures please

The valance goes right across the room including over the front door. Sorry for the poor photo, from realtor site.

Well, it isnt the best picture, but, it does need to be bigger. I clicked on it and it wont enlarge. It is very hard to be able to tell anything from that picture.

Are you talking about the beam? Because I don't see a 'valance'.

It’s a bit confusing. The valance is on both sides of the beam and comtinues on both sides, the length of the room. It’s quite deep, I would guess 14-16”. What makes it more confusing in the photo is there is a glassed-in porch beyond the windows and it kind of looks like that is the line of the ceiling but it is not, that ’line’ about 6-8‘ past the living room and dining room wimdows. That beam goes through the centre of the whole house, unfortunately, it’s been ‘popcorned’ at some point! I will remove the ‘popcorn’ but do not know whether to paint it a dark colour or match the ceiling colour.

The valance looks kinda grey-ish in the photo and extends a few inches under the beam.

OK, I can kinda' see it now.

Need better pictures--more of them w/ one showing the door.

But, yeh, if it is strictly a decorative element, needs to be gone, IMO. You mentioned 'popcorn' removal. That would be the time to get rid of it.

Am feeling it needs to go too—I just don’t see Craftsman bungalows with deep painted valances. especially weird that they continued it right over the door! Too bad someone went to all the trouble to install the valance, probably in the 60s, when they put down the wall-to-wall carpet update which, to the contrary, protected the gorgeous fir floors for me to discover.

Here it shows how it goes over the door.

They should come off with no problem. I had them here too. Also house from the 60's. Mine also had draperies stapled to the back side. At least one set, was obviously original to the house and was a lot of fun and mess to remove.

Had them in every room in this 1910 Four Square! With matching heavy floral drapes in some rooms and swags in others and... well you get the picture. Huge dusty mess pulling all that wood down and staples and nails. Surprisingly little damage to plaster. So much dust though and bugs... wear a mask!

Had custom blinds made in Portland OR by Handwerk Shop and am waiting on them to arrive any day. You will want to live with it for a bit as we did to decide what looks best.

Love to see more of your home.

Yes, take it down!

We had these monstrous 1960s valences with 3 layers of sheers, thermals and curtains - all on pulleys that ran all around our octagon bay-front LR into the adjacent DR. I agree, they were a mess to take out but did not damage the plaster (thank goodness!) and were oddly made of some really solid wood that made some nice shelves for the attic. :)

Some day, if I ever refinish the windows in these very public rooms of the house, I'll be putting in wood blinds. For now, we have nice curtains in our DR, and kind of crummy ones in the octagon front. But the octagon is 7 windows and pretty complicated and the budget won.

I second Trailrunners suggestion of wearing a mask. The amount of dust is overwhelming.

Protect yourself from the possibility of asbestos in the popcorn ceiling finish. It might be better to cover it with 3/8" gypsum board.