Transform Your Windows with Z Shadow Bead

An interior space’s windows are the natural focal point of any room. Especially during the daytime, the eye is almost always naturally drawn to these areas. So why do so many interior designers, architects and drywallers treat windows like they’re just another part of the wall? These are perfect opportunities for finishers to get creative — tap into your adventurous side and transform your windows with Z Shadow Bead!

To show you how it’s done, we built a window at Trim-Tex HQ and used our Architectural Z Shadow Bead around the edges for an eye-catching trimless look:

To start, make sure to hang your drywall with a gap between it and the window return — the gap needs to be wide enough for your shadow/reveal effect, with an extra ⅛” to accommodate the bead itself. So, if you’re using a Z Shadow Bead with a ½” reveal flange, you’ll need a ⅝” gap.

Next, measure and dry fit your Z Shadow Bead. To easily take exact measurements, we like to take two scrap pieces of bead, each with a 45-degree miter cut on one end, and dry fit them onto a corner. Mark that corner’s outer edges, and when you’ve done the same thing on the other side of the window, you’ll have the exact measurement of where to cut your bead. (See photos below.) Now you may miter cut the edges of each bead to 45-degree angles for the corners of the window.

(Note: miter cutting these beads can be tricky. Use a scrap piece of drywall to bolster the bead’s inner flanges so it won’t wiggle or buckle under the pressure of the miter saw. Learn more about this technique here.)

Once you’ve got all four lengths of Z Shadow Bead measured and cut, attach the bead to the drywall with two coats of 847 Spray Adhesive and half-inch staples every six to eight inches. Now you can start mudding: apply two or more coats of mud to the bead’s mud legs, using your joint knife to clear any mud that may have fallen into the reveal gap.

After that’s dried, use a large abrasive like our Black Widow Pro Sander to feather out the mud along the edges of the window. Then we like to take a thin sanding pad and hold it against our joint knife to help us sand the inner flanges of the shadow effect, evening it out as needed. For our window, we painted the shadow detail after installation using a small paint brush (pictured below), but if you’d prefer, you can also pre-paint Z Shadow Bead ahead of time.