Crown Molding

Single crowns and built-up crowns

Crown molding sits at an angle across the corner where wall meets ceiling. A single piece of three to five inches suits most bedrooms and rooms with eight-foot ceilings. In larger rooms, or under nine and ten foot ceilings, one piece can look thin, so we build crown up from several parts: a frieze board on the wall, a backer, the crown itself, and sometimes a bed molding underneath. Built-up crown gives the room scale without hunting for one enormous molding that is hard to source and harder to hang.

Proportion is the real decision. Crown that is too big makes a room feel lower, and crown that is too small reads as an afterthought. We hold samples up in the room, look at the casing and base already there, and agree on how the crown will look before anything is ordered.

Most crown is paint-grade poplar, pine or MDF. Foam crown has uses on very irregular ceilings, but it dents easily and will not take a crisp cope. Stain-grade crown in oak or cherry is possible and asks for tighter joinery, since nothing can be filled and painted over.

What sagging ceilings and wavy walls do to crown

Crown exposes the true shape of a room. The ceiling in a hundred-year-old house may sag in the middle of a span, dip along old plaster, or run half an inch out of level from one wall to the other. Walls bow, and corners are rarely a true ninety degrees. A straight molding laid against a wavy ceiling shows a gap that comes and goes along its length, and every corner that is not square changes the cut.

How we handle it depends on how far off the room is. Small dips get pulled up with fasteners into the framing, or into blocking we add where joists run the wrong way. Bigger waves are better treated by running the crown straight and level and letting a small adjustment happen along the wall line below, so the eye reads a clean line at the top. Every corner is measured with an angle finder rather than assumed.

Balloon-framed houses and rooms with heavy plaster ceilings sometimes have nothing solid at the top of the wall to nail into. In those rooms we install continuous backing along the run, so the crown is fastened to solid wood rather than to plaster alone.

Before ordering, we also look up into the corners with a long straightedge and a level, and note on a sketch where each wall dips or climbs. That map tells the crew where blocking goes, which corners are far off square, and where a joint should be placed so it lands on solid backing. It takes a little time at the start and saves recutting expensive lengths later.

If a corner, a ceiling or hidden framing changes the plan, you hear about it before we work around it.

Coped inside corners instead of mitered ones

The most common reason crown fails is a mitered inside corner. Two pieces cut at forty-five degrees and pushed together look fine on install day, then open into a dark line as the house dries out over the winter, because each piece shrinks away from the other. A coped joint runs one piece square into the corner and cuts the second piece to the exact profile of the first, so the two overlap instead of butting. When the wood moves, the coped piece slides along its partner and the corner stays closed.

Outside corners are mitered, glued and pinned so they behave as one piece. Long walls that need a splice get a glued scarf joint, placed away from where the eye lands when you walk in. Every piece is fastened into framing or blocking.

Coping is slower. In a room with six or eight inside corners it adds real hours to the job, and it is the difference between crown that looks good at the final walkthrough and crown that still looks good years later.

Replacing crown that has already opened up

Plenty of owners call because the crown they have already looks bad: caulked corners that crack every season, gaping miters, sections pulling away from a ceiling that has settled. Sometimes it can be saved by fastening it into new blocking and recutting the worst corners. More often, when the corners were mitered and the crown was nailed only to plaster, replacement is the honest answer, and we will say so.

Taking crown down in an older home brings paint and plaster along with it. In houses built before 1978 we follow lead-safe practices and contain the room before the first piece comes off. Cracks along the ceiling line are patched before the new crown goes up.

If the ceiling itself is sagging badly, crown will not hide it. The plaster or framing needs attention first, and that work is covered on our ceiling modifications page.

Adding crown to rooms you already live in

Crown usually goes into finished rooms full of furniture. During the walkthrough we settle the profile and size, which rooms and closets get it, and what needs moving, and all of that goes into the written scope.

Crown in a finished house also runs into things that were never planned for it: a smoke detector close to the wall, a ceiling register, a curtain rod bracket, a cabinet that runs to the ceiling. We note each of those during the walkthrough and decide together whether the item moves, the crown returns around it, or the crown stops short. Smoke detectors and electrical items are moved by a licensed electrician when they have to go.

Cutting happens in one set-up area, floors and furnishings are covered, and the room is cleaned at the end of each day. If a corner, a ceiling or hidden framing changes the plan, you hear about it before we work around it. The crown is filled, caulked where it is paint-grade, and left ready for paint or painted if that is part of the job.

If you are planning other work in the same rooms, such as new windows, recessed lighting or fresh plaster, crown should come after those trades so it is not disturbed. We help sort out that order so the crown is one of the last things to go up.

See the rest of our structural work, or browse the gallery for rooms we have finished.