How to Install CROWN MOLDING-102 for About $7.50 Per Foot: Part 1

Traditional Style

Finish Carpenter Price c. $25.00/lf + $30.00/corner

This is what I’ve come to call, for lack of a better term, a soffit crown molding.

This means that the projection of the crown molding (the part the extends from the wall out along the ceiling) has a structural element to it.

The soffit of a crown is quite often a plain, flat reveal. But this one I made with an ornate scroll molding in the soffit.

The entire buildup is made from eight separate pieces of molding and flat-stock.

And even though you may be tired of me saying this, I’m going to say it again…this is so easy to make!

Posts In This Series

1. How to Install CROWN MOLDING-102 for About $7.50 Per Foot: Part 1

2. How to Install CROWN MOLDING-102 Part 2: Molding & Millwork Inventory

3. How to Install CROWN MOLDING-102 Part 3: Making the Soffit

4. How to Install CROWN MOLDING-102 Part 4: Installing the Soffit

5. How to Install CROWN MOLDING-102 Part 5: Building Up the Soffit

6. How to Install CROWN MOLDING-102 Part 6: Wrap Lower Detail, Dentil, Cornice

This Crown is What Tray Ceilings are Trying to Be

I’ve never made a secret of how I feel about tray ceilings.

It’s not that they are inherently bad, it’s just that they are usually employed to add architectural character to a room that has none, and without adding moldings to frame the tray ceiling then all you have is another undefined space — but this one’s overhead.

What most rooms really need is a nice crown molding like this one, rather than a tray ceiling.

Below Can you see how the step created by this crown molding in effect results in a sort of “tray” in the ceiling?

You’ll only find crown moldings like this one in the most elaborate homes in the world.

And yet you can go down to your local lumber yard and buy the materials to make one just like this.

Not only that, with this step by step tutorial and the tools you probably already have in your garage, you can build it yourself.

But if you want your local finish carpenter to install it for you, then just point him or her to this series to give them the gist of what you want them to build for you.