Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I was at Lowe's today and saw their huge selection of crown moldings. I never knew it was just strips of wood you could nail into the wall yourself. I had always thought it was some sort of special material and very high end--very expensive. But it just looks high end, when in fact it's pretty cheap to buy, and can be a DIY project.
Anyhow, I'm just wondering why more people don't do this. When we were looking at houses for many months before we bought our current house, we noticed very few houses had crown moldings at open houses. Why not just put them in every room--they look so nice and are so inexpensive. Can anyone shed light on this situation?
If you do it yourself, just make sure you measure each piece very carefully, and then measure it again, and again. There's nothing worse than crown molding with gaps in the corners...
The materials might be inexpensive but can you imagine how many cuts need to be made? The second floor of my house had no crown molding and it took a team of two carpenters two full days just to cut all the pieces. I also did not have just one strip of molding installed either. The molding on my first floor is very intricate and at least 8 inches thick and lots of variations in thickness.
Some homes are also not appropriate for crown molding too. Older homes had picture molding since putting nails in a plaster wall is hard to repair to hang art work.
I agree though, crown molding is the finishing touch to many houses though. I think the same way about nice baseboards too.
1.Doesn't match the style of many houses. Most modern houses have minimal wood trim.
2. Its not that cheap. I put up crown molding in my bathroom. It was a simple one piece pine trim that I stained and finished myself. It was still about 50 dollars for the trim alone. That's for a small room. If I did my living room it would be over 250 dollars for fairly simple trim and at least 250 for someone to put it up. Do a couple of rooms using oak or cherry and you can easy spend a few thousand. Do something a little fancy and the cost skyrockets quickly.
3. Crown moulding is tricker to put up vs baseboard or chair-rail. So many DIY cannot do so it looks good.
2. Its not that cheap. I put up crown molding in my bathroom. It was a simple one piece pine trim that I stained and finished myself. It was still about 50 dollars for the trim alone. That's for a small room. If I did my living room it would be over 250 dollars for fairly simple trim and at least 250 for someone to put it up. Do a couple of rooms using oak or cherry and you can easy spend a few thousand. Do something a little fancy and the cost skyrockets quickly.
Good points. Does a store like Lowe's carry different types of wood trip--pine, oak, and cherry or is it just one type of wood? When I was there I think I just saw the ones that were pre-finished in white or the plain wood ones that you can stain or paint, but not sure what type of wood that was or if there were different options.
We have crown molding that is of the easy type. I had to have a number of sections re-done because the angles were not right and there were joints showing. Even the easy type is hard to get looking right, and the laid-up five and seven segment crown molding is literally a crowning touch by a pro.
What a lot of folks don't understand is that ceilings are rarely level or square. It takes a real craftsman to make things look right, even when they aren't.
Unless you intend on painting it I wouldn't go with anything but hardwood. If you have to do a whole house with hardwood molding it's going to be expensive unless you're me. We get rough hewn oak from the sawmill, planer >> joiner >> table saw >> sanding machine >> molding machine which is really just a small planer for making molding. My brother did his whole house for about 1/4 the cost including the cost of the molding machine. The other tools we already had. Not an option for most people.
Once you get past the expense of the material installing it properly is no easy task. You will need a miter saw or you might as well not even do it. Compound joints on corners on the inevitable crooked walls is where you will have the most difficulty.
No value added.
Expensive, waste of money.
If you want to impress some 80 year old lady fine, but who cares - doesn't fit with a modern home.
What would you rather spend $5000 on?
a new air conditioner
new flooring
new kitchen counters
a central vac, trash compactor, and a new hi res TV
a house paint job
a couple of your kids' braces
a car down payment
a Roth IRA
an investment in an S&P 500 fund and watch it turn to $20K in 15 to 20 years
I was at Lowe's today and saw their huge selection of crown moldings. I never knew it was just strips of wood you could nail into the wall yourself. I had always thought it was some sort of special material and very high end--very expensive. But it just looks high end, when in fact it's pretty cheap to buy, and can be a DIY project.
Anyhow, I'm just wondering why more people don't do this. When we were looking at houses for many months before we bought our current house, we noticed very few houses had crown moldings at open houses. Why not just put them in every room--they look so nice and are so inexpensive. Can anyone shed light on this situation?
You have to have some skill to put up crown molding - can't just slap it up there. You also need the tools to get a nice professional look.
Many people don't have the skills or tools to get the job done.
IT can be very expensive to outsource the job to a professional.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
We get rough hewn oak from the sawmill, planer >> joiner >> table saw >> sanding machine >> molding machine which is really just a small planer for making molding. My brother did his whole house for about 1/4 the cost including the cost of the molding machine. The other tools we already had. Not an option for most people.
