CROWNING ACHIEVEMENTS Accessorizing a Room with Crown Moulding
	JULY/AUGUST 2005

by Christopher Baggott
Photos by Christopher Baggott

I’m one of the thousands of people who bought a new home in East County. My wife, Lora, and I have only owned it for about a year and our heads are continually swimming with bits and pieces from the endless episodes of Trading Spaces, Designers Challenge, Divine Design, HGTV (Home & Garden Television, for you uninitiated), and on and on that we continually watch. For both Lora and I, home improvement has moved beyond the level of hobby to borderline compulsion. Ideas for fixing this place up assault us from all sides. Projects involving paint colors, tile, carpet, concrete, backyard renovations, curb appeal enhancement, window coverings, etc. pass through our conciseness in an endless, inspiring parade. Reaching a final decision on any of the projects sometimes becomes a source of lively dispute.

I recently had to face a decision of what home improvement project I would choose next from among all the possibilities. Making any change in the backyard would be too expensive at this time. We’ve painted nearly every room in the house with a color other than the “contractor white” that new homes usually come with. Window covering projects belong to my wife and she fiercely protects that domain from any intrusion on my part (just as I, on the other hand “own” everything that goes on in the garage).

Finally, I found the perfect project. A couple of my friends clued me in to the wonderful world of crown moulding, which refers to the decorative treatments that are placed in the angle where a room’s walls and ceilings come together. Crown moulding is one of those nifty design elements that doesn’t call attention to itself. Nobody except an interior decorator, perhaps, would walk into a room and say, “Oh what lovely crown moulding you have!” Instead, a person entering the room will think something like “What a beautiful, warm room this is!” and never be aware where the sense of lavish style, in part, comes from.

Imagine a poster or painting without a frame. Then picture it inside a nice frame. The chances of someone commenting on how nice a picture looks increases greatly when it has a frame. This effect of a frame on a picture is the same effect that quality crown moulding can have on a room; it frames the room with a rich and luxurious setting.

Just because I’m passionate about home improvement doesn’t mean that I actually know how to swing a hammer like a true craftsman. I’m starting to get better at using tools, but my habit is to get an expert to work on the job with me. I save money through the “sweat equity” I put into the project, I improve my skills, and the job always gets done right.

Installing crown moulding is one of those jobs that sounds easier than it actually is. Doing this successfully requires the obvious carpentry, caulking, and painting skills. Beyond that, however, looms the often daunting task of getting the moulding to fit seamlessly into the angles where the various wall and ceiling surfaces meet.

My contractor and I finished the job successfully and, in the course of doing so, I learned what the job of installing crown moulding actually requires and some of the secrets of doing this right. That’s what I’m passing on to you.

Before You Begin
Some homework is involved before you drive your first nail or cut the first piece. The choices you make in preparation for the project are as important as the act of putting up the moulding itself. You have to answer three essential questions:

What kind of moulding do you want? The least important choice has to do with the material, itself. The two most common materials include finger-jointed pine and MDF (medium density fiberboard). Finger jointed pine results from a process of gluing and pressing together interlocking fingers of end cut pinewood to create a long uniform piece that can then be molded into the desired shape. MDF, on the other hand, is a compressed wood product created by gluing paper pieces and wood particles into a board.

The choice between the two materials depends on whom you’re talking to. Some “old school” contractors prefer using the pine material. Others are impressed by the incredible technological improvements in MDF. If price is a major consideration, MDF is usually the less expensive. You can’t really go too wrong with either, however. Note that you’re not really stuck with these two choices. Some crown moulding styles are available in oak, cherry, and maple, as well.

What kind of style do you want? This is a more difficult choice because you have to select the style and width from among many options; including some varieties of moulding that are scalable — in other words, molding that can be stacked in layers both across a ceiling surface and down a wall to create an unbounded variety of choices, including elaborate effects employing moulding that spreads out a couple of feet.

I learned that the number one challenge is to pick the correct size — one that really works with existing baseboards and casings (the trim around doors and windows). Crown moulding that is too big or too small will not complement the other parts of the room. Don’t be afraid to experiment with style, but always keep in mind the effect the finished project will have on the room as a whole. You might be able to achieve a nice effect, for example, by adding a fancy belt to a pair of jeans, but you probably want to stay away from lace. The choice of moulding style for your room is like that; when you’re finished, all parts have to fit together into a harmonious, pleasant whole. Don’t be afraid to ask for advice.

Where will you buy the materials? The third choice is also potentially important. The large home improvement box stores carry the supplies you need, but you might want to shop for these in a store that specializes in moulding products. We found such a store in Concord, called The Moulding Company. The company has a great showroom and a warehouse with a huge on-site inventory that includes more than 500 styles of moulding. The number of choices is effectively infinite because The Moulding Company has a relationship with a local millworks who will fabricate any interior architectural trim to a customer’s satisfaction.

Best of all, The Moulding Company has a very helpful staff. They will show you the variety of choices available in width, style and build-up. One of the owners told me that they all thought it was a fun business to offer customers the means of doing something that will be really satisfying for themselves.

The Moulding Company is a full-service shop for crown moulding supplies. If you have a style in mind, for example, they can show you an example as installed on their showroom ceiling with both upper and lower build-ups. This is the recommended approach because taking samples home fails to provide the effect of the finished product when it is actually installed.

I ended up purchasing MDF that was pre-primed with a lacquer sealer primer. By the way, my installer said it was the highest grade. The delivery guy and the sales staff were great! And to top it off, their prices were lower than those in one of the box stores.

The Moulding Company has three Bay Area locations in Concord, Millbrae, and Santa Clara. The Concord location is at:

The Moulding Company
2310 Bates Avenue
Concord, California 94520
(925) 798-7525

How much do you have to order? This is an easy question to find the answer to. After going through a dozen samples, or so, we finally settled on a 7-inch MDF double dead design for the main rooms and a 6-inch double dead design for the kitchen. You determine order quantity in three steps:

1. Measure the length of the walls.
2. Add about 6 inches for every external corner. This allows for overhang where corners meet.
3. Divide the total length by 16. This results in a figure that represents the total number of pieces you have to order, since the product comes in 16-foot lengths.

Getting the Angle; Getting it Right
A crucial challenge in installing crown moulding is to make any design match when running from one wall to another through a corner. The real trick, however, is to get the angles right. If you’re good at math, and especially calculus, this should be a piece of cake. The rest of the world usually eyeballs the corners, shaving off segments until arriving at a perfect cut.

The linear measurement from one wall to the next will be exact only for the outside dimension of any piece of moulding (the part farthest from the line where wall and ceiling meet). The big problem is that the length along the other side will be governed by the necessity of making one strip of moulding fit with moulding from an adjoining wall at the point where the two intersect at any inside or outside corner.

Here are a few tips I learned for this part of the process:

• You can save yourself a lot of waste by using a piece of scrap to determine a perfect cut for corners. Keep molding and shaving that piece until the fit is perfect. When finished you have a template you can use to cut the piece of moulding itself for every similar intersection.
• A person working alone can hang a 16-foot piece of molding by using a nail to create a temporary bracket of sorts to support the board near the middle in order to provide leverage while getting the corners just right.
• Before final nailing of a board, begin the process for the subsequent piece. That way, if the design doesn’t match, you have an opportunity to adjust both pieces in order to achieve the best fit.
• Keep each piece right side up. Some moulding designs have a very slightly difference in top and bottom and so they must be installed right side up to achieve a perfectly seamless look.
• Rent or borrow a pneumatic nail gun and use 1 to 2-inch nails that are a 15 gauge. The nail will probably bend if it hits copper tubing rather than puncture your plumbing.

Finishing Touches
Three easy steps are required following installation to finish up the job.

1. Put a bead of latex or paintable caulking down all seams.
2. Fill all nail holes with wood putty.
3. Finish off corners with any required putty and caulking.

I painted my new crown moulding with oil based “bone china.” Use any color you like, of course, but remember to keep the final effect in tune with what you already have on your casings and baseboards. Don’t be a wimp about this, however. Contrasting wall colors really add to some rooms, so experiment and have some fun.

I am very pleased with the transformation my crown moulding has made to my room. My relatively small amount of effort and expense has created an effect that was beyond my expectations. Watching and learning has given me confidence to try some small project on my own.

Maybe I’ll try putting wainscoting on the room. (Or maybe I’ll just quit watching those home improvement shows so much!)