Decorating with Crown Moldings

When decorating a room, paint colour and fabric design often take precedent over other decor elements like moldings. While there is no argument that items like paint are important aspects of room design, decorative crown moldings can add substance and a sense of sophistication to a space. Learn about crown moldings, from the different types available to how to install them to create an elegant living space.

from www.home-decorating-reviews.com 

They enhance and add decoration to your home. They are installed as trims to many places in the house, such as ceilings, doors, and walls, in addition to the floors and windows.

Generally, most homes come with moldings as standard pieces of decor on the doors and windows, but more can be added later on in many appropriate places. They are quite stylish and add to the plain look of the ceilings, walls, etc.

Mouldings are made of a number of different materials, major among them being wood – soft wood and hard wood among others. Moldings made of resin are also popular; The main advantage of having them is that they cover up any defects in the construction, as well as poor workmanship, and enhance the complete look of the room.

Where To Use Decorative Moldings

Installing them is a great way to add finishing touches to your home. The styles you select will depend on the style and architecture of your home; for contemporary home styles, and those for home styles with the old world touch, will differ. The moldings for the latter homes will be more heavily decorative, whereas the ones for the contemporary homes will be sleek.

If you decide to install crown moldings on your ceiling, you need to take into consideration your room size, and the ceiling height. Big crown designs in smaller rooms with lower ceilings will seem to overpower the rooms. Experts recommend that you pre-paint them before installation. This will require less effort than painting them once they have been installed. For your dining room and the living room, the traditional styles of molding would be more appropriate. Your bedrooms and bathrooms can go with the contemporary styles. The same will be true for your kitchen also.

Let us look at the best places to install decorative moldings in your home:

Along And On The Ceiling – The ceiling is the most visible place for moldings. There are moldings that form a projection at the top of the walls along the ceiling.

Such moldings are popularly known as Cornice moldings, and are quite sought after. The size of your room will dictate the size of the moldings to be used. Traditionally moldings of plaster are made and adhered to the ceilings. Alternately, moldings are carved from plaster on the ceilings. Today, many people have replaced plaster moldings with moldings made from polyurethane or polystyrene, and these are painted to blend with the existing decor of the rooms. At times, a special molding is made at the center of the ceiling, as a focal point for installing chandeliers, or other fixtures.

The Floor – The place at which the lower part of your interior walls meets the floor, a different type of surface is installed. This is generally a board, which could be plain or decorative, depending on what you like. Such moldings, known as dadoes, cover the area where the walls join the floor. Depending on your choice, they could be anything from 2 inches to 8 inches in height.

Along And On The Walls – Walls often get damaged or scratched by the chairs when they are backed into them. To cover these marks, generally plain or decorative moldings are fixed across the wall at chair height. If you have wainscoting in your rooms, moldings are an ideal way to cover the place where the wainscot meets with the rest of the wall. Some people like to arrange moldings on the walls in a particular pattern to break the monotony of the plain walls. This imparts a recessed look and the different recesses can be painted with different colors, or the same color, depending.

Around And On the Doors – Beautiful decorative moldings are installed around the doors – actually around the doorframes – that add to the look of the rooms. They have the added advantage of covering the gaps that exist between the doorframes and the walls. If your doors are plain doors, you can enhance their looks by adding moldings to them. They can form panels, or any other geometric shape, and just need to be nailed on, and painted to match, or contrast, with the rest of the door.

Around the Windows – Decorative moldings, also known as casings, are used to frame the windows to add to their look. They also help in covering any gaps that exist between the frames of the windows and the walls. Such casings can be of various widths to suit your requirements.

Other than the above five best places to install decorative moldings in your home, you can further enhance the décor of your home by adding moldings elsewhere.

You can completely transform your plain and drab looking bookcase just by adding moldings made of wood. Such moldings can simply be nailed on and painted, or polished, to match with the rest of the bookcase. Other place you can consider is the fireplace, the framing of which with moldings will further enhance the décor of your room.

from www.thisoldhouse.com 

1. Lay out the molding  •Determine the order in which each piece of molding will go up around the room by drawing a plan view of the room on paper. To avoid having to cope both ends of the last length of molding, install the outside corner last. Otherwise, number each wall counterclockwise, starting with the one opposite the door.   •Hold a scrap piece of molding in place at each inside and outside corner and mark the position of its bottom edge—the edge that will sit on the wall—with a pencil. Stretch a chalk line between the marks at each corner and snap lines along the wall. This is the installation line.  •Locate studs and joists. Mark their locations with a pencil just below the installation line.  

2. Install the first length  •Measure the wall for the first molding piece. Transfer this measurement to the wood, then use a power miter saw to cut the molding square at each end.   •Align the wood with the chalk line from Step 1. Working from the center, drive 8d finish nails through the molding—½ inch from the bottom edge and ½ inch from the top edge—into each stud and joist. Near the ends, drill 1/16-inch pilot holes for 4d or 6d finish nails.   •If necessary, splice two pieces with a scarf joint centered over a stud. Set the saw to a right-hand 45-degree setting. Hold the first molding piece to the right of the blade, and cut. Hold the adjoining piece to the left of the blade, and cut. Pilot a hole in the overlapping molding, ½ inch to the side of the joint, and attach with 6d finish nails.

3. Cut inside corner joint  •Coping is the process of cutting the end of a molding to mimic the profile milled into its face. Coped cuts are used where one piece of crown molding meets another at an inside corner.   •Place a length of crown upside down on the miter saw so that the molding's bottom edge—the edge that will sit on the wall—rests against the fence, and the top edge—the one that goes on the ceiling—rests against the table.   •Set the saw to 45 degrees; swing the saw left for a left-side coped corner, and vice versa for a right corner. When you make the cut, the long point of the miter should be on the back of the molding, not on the face.

4. Highlight cut line with pencil  •After mitering the end of the crown molding, use a pencil to mark the edge on the face of the miter cut. This easy-to-see highlight will serve as your coping-saw cut line.

5. Cope inside corner joint  •To create a snug-fitting joint, hold a coping saw at a 5-degree angle away from the face of the molding and carefully cut along the pencil-marked edge. Check for a tight fit by bringing the molding to the wall and sliding it into place. If necessary, use a wood rasp or utility knife to pare away excess wood.   •Before attaching the piece to the wall, determine if its uncut end will land at an inside or outside corner. For an outside corner, proceed to Step 6. For an inside corner, measure from the top edge of the first piece you installed (Step 2) to this corner. Transfer that measurement to the coped molding by hooking the measuring tape on its top edge. Mark the length to the inside corner. Using the miter saw, make a square cut on that mark and nail the molding up, as in Step 2.

6. Mock-up an outside corner  •To measure a coped piece of molding that ends at an outside corner, make a mock-up of the corner from two 12-inch-long molding scraps. Make an outside miter cut on one piece, as in Step 3. Repeat this process for the second scrap piece, but rotate the saw blade to the opposite 45-degree angle. Glue and nail the pieces ends together.   •Hold the mock-up in place and mark the ceiling where the two pieces of molding come together.   •Measure from the top edge of the first piece you installed (Step 2) to the ceiling mark. Transfer that measurement to the coped length of molding (Step 3). Swing the saw back to its original 45-degree position and cut the molding to length.

7. Installing an outside corner  •If the other side of the corner will butt into an inside corner that does not require a coped end, first repeat the measuring and cutting sequence to complete the outside corner, making sure to rotate the saw blade to the opposite 45-degree angle. Then measure for and cut the butt end. Align the piece on the wall, spread glue on the surfaces of the miter, and nail the molding into place as in Step 2, fastening the corners together as you did on the mock-up.   •If the other side of the corner will butt into an inside corner that does require a coped end, repeat Steps 3-5 first, then complete the outside corner as above.

8. Cutting and fastening a return  •Continue working around the room, coping inside corners and mitering outside corners.   •If the ceiling height changes and the molding must end in the middle of a wall, cap it with a return. First, make an outside miter cut, as in Step 6, at the point where the ceiling height changes. Then, take a molding scrap at least a foot long and cut an outside miter on its end. To make the wedge-shaped cap, set the saw to 90 degrees and hold the scrap with its back flat on the saw table, cutting the piece so that it comes to a point at the bottom edge. Avoid splitting the small piece by gluing the return in place rather than nailing it.

from www.servicemagic.com

We all remember our first apartment or college dorm—the industrial white walls, the raggedy old "beige" carpet, the sharp angles that had you believe, surely, that you were a rat in some cruel kid's science experiment. Since then, tastes have refined, wallets accommodate, and living in a box simply no longer works.

In Comes Crown Molding

Nothing warms a room like the softening of angles. Crown molding is the decorative trim used to transition from wall to ceiling, adding a subtle elegance to any room. Sometimes it is spelled "crown moulding". Choosing a crown molding is as important as choosing a frame for an expensive painting. If it is too big or gaudy in relation to your home design, it becomes the focus of attention. If it is too small or simple, it can look cheap and cheapen what it frames. In a home—the largest single purchase of your life—this is obviously not ideal. Trim is so important, in fact, that often people choose to go with custom crown mouldings, in order to settle in on the exact look to frame their home design, to match their own personal style.

Types of Crown Moulding

There is an unlimited variety of decorative molding styles. The ogee, a simple "s"-shaped reverse-curve profile, and the cove molding, a simple concave trim, are among the most understated. On the other end of the spectrum are trims like the egg and dart (a line of small bulbs cast along the center), the rosevine crown (roses and vines consume the trim), and the dentil crown (the bottom edge distinguished by equidistant squares.) Each of these decorative trims can be the perfect fit for the right home design. And if you don't find what you want, or if you have a piece of furniture with a particular trim, or a trim design of your own, there are many craftsmen who can help you design your own custom crown molding.

Wood vs. Composite Molding

Crown molding can be made out of soft woods, hardwoods or of composite materials. Of these choices, hardwoods like oak are the most expensive, but certainly the most attractive when stained. Soft woods like poplar, spruce, or pine are less expensive and certainly attractive when painted or stained. And composites, such as the fiberboard or polyurethane, and the least expensive choice and often used because they are also the easiest to paint. In your choices here, budget often is the most important consideration. While using composite crown molding is becoming a regular feature in most homes because of its cost and its lifetime, it is recognizably not wood. On the other side, an oak molding can look out of place if the furniture and other décor of a home do not match the elegance that this type of molding can bring to a room. For these reasons, interior designers with a keen eye can often be very helpful in matching a crown moulding to your home design.