Traditional – Victorian – Craftsman – Art Deco
The Joy of Moldings is now headquartered in the Metro Detroit area.
I moved here a few weeks ago after an abrupt and unforseen change to my life forced my hand.
The good news is that there are far more moldings to write about from here. So you can expect the same kind of molding posts as always.
Cheers,
Ken O’Brien
Here we have a beautiful painted door surround by one of our regular contributors, Matthew.
Keep up the great work, Matthew. You are creating such a beautiful home. And thanks for sharing!
Matthew’s Makes a Beautiful Baseboard Buildup For $0.76/lf
Our half bathroom molding makeover turned out beautiful!
Here’s the list of finishing touches to come:
Matthew created this 7″ tall baseboard buildup by removing his original baseboard and using it for the upper detail.
The lower molding profile is an ogee that he bought separately. It looks like PM-008 would do the job nicely.
Once again, nice work Matthew. And thanks so much for sending in your work for us to post. I’ll post the picture of your door surround later this week!
Matthew’s Four-Piece Crown Molding $2.03/lf
DIY Baseboard Projects (Category)
The Wonderful World of Plinth Blocks
We want to show off your moldings to our dedicated readers.
Send your diy projects, moldings installed by a professional finish carpenter or historic home moldings by contacting me here.
Architectural ornaments, like these rosettes on the facade of a historic building in Bisbee, do not always get a detailed coat of paint like the one on the left.
And the same holds true for the appliques you install on your door and window surrounds, or any other place you want to add ornament to.
This example should give you some idea which direction you want to go on your own moldings — to paint or not to paint!
With the light fixture safely installed by a pro, I could finish installing and painting the new moldings.
What do you do when a diy project exceeds your skill level? When the problem is electrical — and the consequence is, say, burning down the house – I’ll tell you what I do, I call a pro to do the job for me.
I saved moving the wall-mounted light fixture until nearly the end of our half bathroom renovation. After all, how hard could it be?
Beyond my skill level. The bathroom light box needs to be moved left to the other side of the stud.
Harder than I had anticipated.
When I opened up the wall to see the light junction box, I was surprised to see more wires than I knew what to do with. So I did what most of us do, I went to Google Maps and looked for a local electrician. But the results were slim.
So I did the unthinkable, I asked a human being for a referral. The living, breathing search engine I asked was the same sales person at Sun Lighting I bought the new bathroom light fixture from. She directed me to a local remodeling company called Beyond Paint.
My experience with Beyond Paint was delightfully uneventful.
John gave me a timely estimate and his technician arrived on schedule to move the light box to the other side of the stud and wire up the new light. The final price (which was too good to be true) was the same as the estimate. What more could you want!
Beyond Paint
Office (520) 760-8771
A four-piece crown molding perfect for a room with cathedral ceilings.
Hey Ken,
I just wanted to share a picture of my crown molding that I recently finished. I based it off of one your styles.
It’s 4 pieces, the fourth piece being a 1/2 inch cove at the top.
It cost $2.03 a foot.
Thanks,
Matthew
Thanks so much for sending us a picture of your beautiful crown molding Matthew. You did an excellent job — especially getting the outer edge of the return to terminate exactly where the ceiling begins to pitch up.
Keep up the great work and we’ll be looking forward to seeing how your wainscoting turns out!
You can see the crown Matthew based his on here: How to Make a Crown Molding Finial Return.
It’s been a year since I went live with this blog, and the growth in readership has been tremendous.
I want to thank you for subscribing, commenting and sending pictures of your completed molding projects that the blog helped inspire.
You may have noticed the recent changes to the blog theme. The theme is the new version of Standard, the best-coded WordPress theme available.
Think of a blog theme in construction terms. In the same way that a poorly-framed house will not function well, neither will a poorly-coded blog theme. And Standard is coded with the same skill and passion as dedicated team of craftsmen building a house.
This new theme will make it easier for you to view the blog on all kinds of tablet devices, especially iPads. It is also one of the fastest loading themes out there, and that means you get to the information you want faster than ever. I hope you like it!
Sincerely,
Ken O’Brien
For about the price of staying two nights at the Copper Queen you can install the same wainscoting in your own home.
This tall painted wainscoting is located in the foyer of Arizona’s oldest and continuously operated hotel, and is about 52″ high.
If you’re in the mood to install a similar wainscoting somewhere in your home this weekend, then set up your laptop or tablet open to this page How to Install Tall WAINSCOTING-100 for About $10.33/ft, and get your tools ready because it’s not all that hard to do.
I use this to glue those really small pieces of moldings together.
The trick to getting a secure bond between your two mitered faces is to allow the first smear of glue to soak into the exposed end-grain. The second coat of glue will now bond with its mating surface.
It also helps to let the glue tack up a bit before mating the two surfaces.
Notice the door surround reflected in the mirror above the fireplace. Nice touch, Greg.
[This post is part of our How to Build FIREPLACE MANTEL-102 for $162.00 series.]
Sometimes the task of taking a few nice pictures of a finished molding installation project gets neglected in the mad rush to finish one project and then move on to the next.
That’s exactly what happened when I finished building and painting this fireplace mantel.
But thanks to Greg, who took the time to take some nice photos and send them to me, I now present to you his Federal style fireplace mantel with its applied appliques and final coats of paint.
The key to steaming the appliques until they are soft is to cover them while they are steaming.
This is the traditional method for installing compo appliques on a porous surface.
The technique worked really well for my intended purpose of softening up these old appliques so that they would lay flat.
This panel will be the focal point on our master bedroom window valance box.
This post shows you how I prepare this compo scroll and acanthus leaf applique for installation on this bare wood panel.
Flat-Stock PanelThis is the first time I’ll be using this pre-cut flat-stock board for a center panel for displaying an ornament.
The center panel is where I’ll apply the scroll and acanthus leaf compo applique, and these compo appliques need a porous surface to adhere to.
Working up VALANCE BOX-103 rough draft with this scroll and acanthus leaf applique.
An applique perfect for the center of a door or window entablature (see it applied to a swan’s neck entablature here, fifth picture down), a fireplace mantel center, or a window valance box/pelmet.
