You Should See Me In A Crown

Hey there landing crew and welcome to a a truly educational episode, filled with DIY interior design gems. 24k tips, right here. I’ve got the best way to tie your room together and make everything look polished and like you hired an interior designer - so stay tuned because we are going to take a look into the world of architectural detailing that will take your space from drab to fab.

Have you ever been inside a home that has so much old charm and character, it seems like you don’t have to do much of anything to it for it to feel cozy and interesting and most importantly -  complete? I’ve always been drawn to the elegance of Parisian apartments or classic new york brownstones and victorian mansions for this very reason - there is so much detail in all the trims, moldings, and wall bases that help these homes look like nothing else has to be done. Like every wall has its own giant picture frame.

Most of the modern construction we see today has VERY minimal trim work - usually just a wood base board with a simple profile. That’s it. The use of trims has fallen by the way side in a world of fast and flimsy construction, but just because they are no longer a default in home construction doesn’t mean you can’t utilize the glory of wall trims, ceiling moldings, and walls bases to make your home feel like something out of magazine.

Architectural moldings hail from the extremely practical intention of covering and protecting joints and seams in building materials. This was especially important prior to the industrial revolution when drywall was introduced to the mainstream. Before drywall, walls and ceilings were constructed with a  method called lath and plaster, which was vulnerable to cracking, particularly where the wall and ceiling met. A crown molding is an angled wood plank the runs along the length of a wall where the wall meets the ceiling. It gets its name quite literally for being placed at the top of a room, very similar to a royal crown, if you image the room is a giant person.

Crown molding can also serve double and even triple duty - if you’ve got high ceilings, you can place the crown slightly lower on the wall and use it to hide a perimeter cove light- this can help to accent a decorative ceiling and be a great source of indirect lighting- just make sure you keep the light fixture at least 10” from the ceiling so it has lots of room to disperse and won’t create any hot spots. You can also use the cavity behind your crown molding to neatly tuck away wires for cable, power, and internet - anything that might need to travel from one space to another. 

Make sure that when you commit to having crown molding - you really commit - either all the walls in a room get it or none of them do. When you have a curtain or drapery  in your room- the crown moulding can be installed in front of the hardware,’so it looks invisible and the curtains look like they disappear into the ceiling. It’s a good look.

 Now on the flip side, a baseboard is something many of us may be more familiar with, perhaps even being relegated to dusting them as a childhood choir! This trim is pivotal in not only covering up any sloppy finishing at the bottom of a wall or the edge of your flooring, but also provides important protection to the wall itself. As much as we try to control it, our homes see their fair share of wear and tear. Try saying that five times fast! 

Now even though a wall could be damaged anywhere in its verticality, the majority of scuffs and bumps tend to happen at foot level. Industrial wall bases are sometimes aptly called kick plates. 

Now - I want to make a disclaimer here, In very modern designs -  especially the kinds of projects that are published in design magazines- you will see rooms and homes without wall bases - it can look incredibly minimalist and very chic - and personally this drives me nuts. It may look clean and modern when the room is new, but give it 18 months and you’ll have a visible section of lower wall that looks discolored and chipped. We need wall bases in our homes, our schools, our offices - heck even the walls in our closets need the protection. There’s a reason this is the only trim pieces that has stood the test of time and is still showing up consistently in new buildings. 

With wall bases, the question becomes all about height. a Super sleek 2.5” high base will give you a modern look and recessing it into the wall will take to it to the next level - almost feeling like youre in a museum. The higher the base the more traditional it starts to feel, but the most important thing is to coordinate the wall base to the height of the room. When following classical architecture proportions, the wall base should be approximately 1/16 the height of the room.

Base boards can act as a stopper or bumper to keep objects and people from crashing into a wall, but they are also easier to remove and replace that cutting and patching a section of sheet rock after it gets damaged. a scuffed base board can easily be pried off as its a separate smaller entity. The whole wall? Not so much.

If you want to go even further in your wall protection, you can enter the world of wall moldings - this includes chair rails and wainscoting. A chair rail is a single trim that runs on the wall behind a dining room tables to prevent chairs from damaging the wall when pushed back and wainscoting is the panel work that sits below the chair rail. There has definitely been a big resurgence of wall moldings in past few years, which is awesome, and a much welcomed change. If you decide to embark on a DIY wall molding adventure, there are literally tons of tutorials online, I will leave a few in the show notes for you. But I want to give you a few tips to keep in mind from a designers perspective before you get started with your nail gun.

First thing you want to consider is the window and door heights that are already in your space. Aligning your new wall trim panels to these heights creates a continuous and consistent line around the room, also called a datum line. This helps the whole room look intentional, put together and just cleaner, like a nice sharp horizon line at sunrise.

Next, you want to consider the shape or profile of the trim you’re using, and make sure it’s speaking the same language as the casing around your doors and windows. There are so many shapes and designs available, from simple quarter rounds, to ogee curves, to complex assembles carved with special knives., and all kinds of classic decorative patterns like beed and reel, egg and dart, dentals - the little squares, even all kinds botanical motifs. 

Try looking at national hardware stores and see if you can find a profile that speaks to your doors and windows - you don’t want it to match exactly - it should be about a third of the width, but there maybe a shape in your door frame that will serve as inspiration for you wall trim - get a few samples cut and look at each one with your existing trim, then - go with your gut.

And a word of safety if you’re working with a nail gun or saw at any point on any project make sure you are wearing proper eye protection and for protection at all times. Nail guns are pretty easy to work with, sometimes a little too easy to work with if you know what I mean.

 To really make your molding pop, plan all of your wall hangings to work within the panels you are creating this includes art, mirrors and other accessories like light switches - these should fall into the grid you’re creating, and look centered within a frame of molding. There’s nothing worse than seeing art hung on top of two sections of wall trim!

One mistake to watch out for - if you’re working with ceilings ten feet and under, too many sections of panels can make your room feel shorter. Adding wainscoting or a chair rail will make the room feel squatty, what will elongate it are single height panels that are just shy of the crown molding and stretch almost to the wall base. Don’t emphasize the horizontal m, emphasize the vertical in the short rooms.

Another great thing about wall trim is it provides a great transition for paint or wallpaper - you can be playful with changing the color and texture of your wall inside the panel and leave the outside wall more neutral - or vice versa, but the beauty is that the trim will easily cover the change from one material to another.

And if the whole look is feeling too traditional and giving you bad flashbacks to your aunts house in the 80’s, try adding color. Deep hues like navy and hunter green painted across the full wall can feel like a newer spin on such a classic detail. Now of you are digging the traditional vibe you can play it up by painting your trim in a light, contrasting color, and keep the walls more medium toned, and don’t forget to get the paint for the trim in a satin finish, but keep the walls classic eggshell.

I want to take a minute to give a shout out to all the renters out there! I am amoungst you! And adding trims, crown moldings or changing your wall bases will definitely eat up your security deposit. If you want the the finished look of trims, you can try approximating them by using painters tape to mask off some rectangles on your wall, and use some light tone on tone paint colors - this will give the definition and structure of moldings without the architectural commitment

Now finally we come to ceiling moldings - these can be incredibly intricate and customized, try dipping your toe in by finding a circular trim piece to accent the ceiling above your favorite chandler - this looks good every time and really only draws more attention to the light fixture, the ceiling molding will be more like a strong supporting actor - which is what good design is all about!