DIY Crown Molding Day 6: Fit and Finish

To call the finishing stage of the crown molding project all one day is a bit of a misnomer. The reality is that it took small parts of about 4 days to caulk and do the finishing touches, all adding up to about a day worth of effort. I went around the room sealing the gaps between the molding and the ceiling and the molding and the wall with DAP Alex Plus Caulk. It is a latex caulk that can be painted. I also needed to fill in each inside corner, and the outside corners so that there were no visible gaps between the pieces of wood.

Perhaps the most challenging part of the finish work were the 3 joints in the room where I had didn’t have enough molding length to span the entire wall. On those joints as well as every place I had nailed, I used DAP Fast N’ Final Spackle. I put many thin coats of spackle on the joints, then let it dry, sanded and applied it again so that it would in theory disappear. Well, after about 4 layers, I gave up trying to get them all perfectly smooth. In retrospect I wish I had made tighter joints to begin with, but we learn.

After all of the filling was complete I took out the trim paint and painted over the caulk and spackle. My last step was to take out the wall paint and touch up any spots on the wall where white caulk was too visible.

Finito
The best part of the project is that it is now done. The results are great. It looks like the crown molding has been there all along, and really provides some nice architectural detail for the room. The project wasn’t overly difficult. It just took patience and a tolerance for having the house and garage in disarray for about a week. The total bill for the project was probably about $250 which included molding, paint, screws, caulk, book, angle measuring tool, etc. It will probably be a bit before I do another room, as I want to let the memories of coping corners fade a bit, but I wouldn’t hesitate.

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