How to install crown molding the easy way
July 21, 2008
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I can't cope crown molding. I swear to you, I'd have that stuff around every room in our house, including closets, if I knew how to cope. (I'm kidding about the closets...kind of.)
These little corner pieces are awesome. You paint them and nail them up in the corners, then just place your molding up against them. Turns out I love the way they look too.
Coping is the detailed cutting you have to do to get crown molding corners to fit together perfectly. Because crown doesn't fit flat against the wall, you can't cut it at a regular angle (like you would trim on the wall) and expect it to match up in the corners like other wood you place directly against the wall.
This is how an inside corner looks, for example. You have to cut the molding to get it perfect like this. And I have no idea how to do it. (Update! I figured out how to cut crown molding.) I've looked it up a trillion times, and can't figure it out.
Soooo...what's a girl to do when she LOVES crown molding and has no patience, and isn't going to pay someone a ridiculous amount of money to do it for her?
She finds these fun little tricks: inside and outside corner pieces. Yahoo!!
These little corner pieces are awesome. You paint them and nail them up in the corners, then just place your molding up against them. Turns out I love the way they look too. You can see how I installed these crown molding corners in our powder room here. This is an outside corner piece:
And the inside corner, with the difference of caulk and no caulk on top!:
These corner pieces make it SO much easier to install crown!
You just cut your crown molding in a straight line and nail it in:
You'll need to caulk along the edges where the crown butts up to the molding, but overall it's easier than coping.
They add an extra elegance to the room and look very historical to me.
The smaller pieces for regular-sized molding are only a few dollars each. They get more expensive for the thicker molding but are still not that bad. Especially considering the alternative -- not doing it at all or paying someone to do it!
Hey Girl! I love this idea. I don't know why I'd never thought of it. Watch out...I may have to try this in my master bedroom.
ReplyDeleteI love your blog! I found you at Today's Creative Blog. I have been wanting to learn how to do molding. Is it difficult?
ReplyDelete~Heather
Go to www.crowncorners.com is where to find it.
ReplyDeletei'm totally new to your blog (love it by the way) and am completely obsessed with crown molding also. loooove it. check out the remodeling guys blog. he has a good link to ace hardware (i think). you cut the side you want to "cope" at a 45 degree angle, then round it off at 90 degrees so it fits over the other piece. i'm about to put some up myself and didn't know how to do it and this site helped me a lot!!! hope it helps you!
ReplyDeleteHmmm. It's been a year since you posted this. I've seen all kinds of stuff on your blog, and I know you are smart enough to figure out coping. I had never heard of coping, but my father-in-law showed me how. You put up the first piece of crown, not mitering the edge, but cutting it off at 90 degrees and butting the end up to the wall, just like you would butt it up to the cheater corner. Then, when you cut the second piece, you do cut it at 45 degrees, as if it were going to fit perfectly with another piece cut at 45 degrees. Then you take the little coping saw and shave away about 1/4 of an inch off of the end you just cut to 45 degrees, except the trick is that you shave away as much as you can of the back (unpainted part) of the molding and leave a very thin bit of the front part. Now when you put it on the wall with the corner part against the other piece, that little part with the backing shaved away will flex a little and the corner will have a tight joint. If it doesn't, fill it in with caulk. Good luck! But by now, I'll bet all of your rooms have crown already.
ReplyDeleteOMGosh SARAH! Never mind about the last comment! This is what I was talking about! YIPPEE! The babies are going DOWN for a nap now! Me and the miter saw are going to get to know one another!
ReplyDelete