DIY Crown Molding Day 1: The Shopping Trip

Monday was the kick-off of a “small” DIY project around the House of Zip. Since we are getting a tax refund this year we thought it would be ok for us to “splurge” on gold plating the house a little bit. Heck, it’s the time of year when there’s nothing better to do than be inside anyways. So I decided to put up crown molding in our living room. I’m psyched to be able to blog about the project. As you’ll see as you go on this journey with me, DIY projects in my world always cost twice as much, take twice as long, take twice as many trips to Lowe’s as a competent handy-man would need. The joy of it for me is doing something other than sit in front of the computer, which is what I do all day long. Wait a minute; I’m sitting here in front of my computer writing about the project that’s supposed to get me away from the computer. Hmph.

So, I embarked on this project first with a little trip to Lowes.com, since that is my closest Home Center. A quick search on crown molding revealed a fine looking book with a URL on the cover, compoundmiter.com. I went to the site and learned about what scares me the most about this project - the weird angles in the room. Never fear, it seems that there is a handy little angle gauge out there that will measure them for me and tell me how to cut the molding.

Next I sketched the entire room on sheet of paper, taking measurements of the length of each wall. I know from past experience that most crown comes in 12′ lengths so I estimated that I’d need 6 lengths for the entire room. 8pm…kids are in bed; off to Lowe’s I went….

When I got there, I first searched out a book. I’ve done crown molding blindly before without a nice book to guide me. When I redid my basement in Chicago, I squinted at some grainy internet pics. This time it’s a pretty book for me. I looked at the compoundmiter.com book, but ended up with the Ultimate Guide to Crown Molding. I chose it because it has great photography and lists a lot of advanced crown projects with 2 3 and 4 pieces layered, that I was always curious about.

Next, I went off to find that magical angle gauge. No luck in the tool department. So, I went to look at the crown thinking perhaps there would be tools by the moldings. No tools there either, but there was a knowledgeable guy there who led me back to the tool department to look at the $60 digital badass that can measure an angle to the micrometer and do all the miter-math for me, or the lowly yellow plastic itty-bitty one for $5 that I would actually have to make calculations from. Normally I’d buy the expensive tool because of the ready-made excuse. Not this time. I bought the cheapy, figuring I might measure an angle 3 or 4 times in my life.

Finally, I went back to pick out the crown. I definitely wanted something even more dramatic than the standard 3-4″ crown that I’ve installed before. The ceilings in the living room are really tall, so I know that they can handle something bigger. But all I could find was the small stuff. Helpful hardware guy told me to turn around and behold the mother of all crown - the 7″ wide MDF primed. Now, that’s some molding, and relatively inexpensive compared to all the dentil plastic Greek Revival junk that was also there. I hemmed and hawed for an eternity trying to figure out whether I should back the crown or not. Should I buy screws, nails, what else. “The time is now 9:59 pm and your neighborhood Lowe’s store would like you to get the heck out of here.” I took that as my cue to hurry up and grab my six crown boards and 3 12′ 2×4 backer boards. I bought the book, the cheapy gauge too. Final tally: 1 trip to Lowe’s $216.25.

Tomorrow I’ll write about my initial battle with the backer boards. It took me all of Tuesday night to rip 3 stinking 12′ boards at an angle. My epic losing battle with the table saw. More to come…

DIY Crown Molding Project: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4,5 | Day 6