Cheater crown molding

Progress people!! It’s happening in the powder room! WHOOT!

I know I said I wasn’t going to show you much more before the reveal. I lied. :)

I don’t know if I’ve told you about the crown molding in this room before, but I thought it was post-worthy, because it makes installing crown SO easy.

I think I have written about it, maybe? I don’t know, remember it’s been five years.

Anyhoo, last I left you I was showing you the new paint color, and in this pic especially you can see how craptastic the crown molding looked:

Spell check doesn’t recognize craptastic. WHY?

I had installed the crown years ago and then never finished it. I know! I’m surprised too!

(That would be sarcasm if you’re new here.)

I installed the primed molding and then put one coat of paint on the cheater pieces (that I’ll tell you more about in a minute) and that was it – no more paint, no caulk:

I did fill the nail holes at least – but the putty was still on there, I didn’t even sand off the excess. ;)

Soooo. It was time to fix that. I started off giving it all one coat everywhere but the bottom. I was able to cut in on the top of the crown because of that lovely gap, but the bottom (that looked the worst because of all the painting I’ve done over the years) needed to be taped off with my trusty FrogTape:

I used the yellow delicate kind because I had painted recently and because I just really like that version – it’s a bit thinner so it’s really easy to work with.

Everything got two coats and it looked SO much better. But crown still doesn't look just right till you get rid of all the gaps:

I still have these gaps in my office too, two years later and I still haven’t gotten up there to caulk all of it. Cause it’s about the most fun evah…can you blame me??

I used the little tool I told you about here to caulk and it worked great along the bottom and at the ceiling.

So now, the good stuff – I found these corner crown pieces years and years ago, before I knew how to cut crown molding:

Even if you know how to cut crown you know it’s still a major pain in the patoot, so these are AWESOME. They are just wood pieces you use on the outside corners (like above), and the inside corners:

So instead of learning how to cut the angles just right, (I showed you how to do that here) or if you don’t have a compound miter saw – this is the stuff for you. You just nail it in and then the actual crown only needs straight cuts that butt up against them.

I love the little architectural flair they give a room! They are kind of expensive, so now that I know how to cut crown I don’t use them anymore. If you just have a square room they wouldn’t be that bad because the inside corner pieces are cheaper.

Painting and caulking crown is one of those things I put off, but when it’s done I can’t believe the difference it makes. Here’s the before:

And the after – bright white and look Ma! No gaps!:

You’ll notice the wood planks have been painted too, halleluiah! Now I feel like I’m really in the home stretch! Just need to finish painting the door trim and baseboards, get the other trim up over the planks, hang a mirror and then I can decorate it a little!

Have you mastered the crown molding cut? Or have you tried these cheater pieces? Someday I’ll have crown in every room of our house – I absolutely love it. And if you can install it yourself the cost isn’t bad at all!