Not a bra size…just the topic of today’s post. Cheating on Crown with Caulk. Triple C’s baby.
That’s right. I am on a roll – answering questions and taking names. and numbers. and kickin butts. or however that saying goes.
I posted about my beefy crown molding trick…yes, it’s chunky and fabulous…which reminds me of this video (which I believe Will.I.Am dedicated to me):
(you can thank me later when you are singing this at work…I like em chunky…)
and then you guys were wanting to know how we did our crown molding. Well. Frankly…we cheated. We don’t do it like it’s supposed to be done. We don’t cut it to fit perfectly together and cope the insides. No. That would take way too much time and we have 1.7 million other things to do rather than carve out moldings. So we cheat. And then we hide our cheating with caulk.
You know that the first thing we do is attach two sides. We don’t cut the corners at all. We just cut them straight to fit right into the corners.
And then here comes the fancy part…we cut our other inside corner crown molding using our miter saw to very specific degrees. Let’s for this example say that we are cutting a right hand corner piece. All we do is lay the molding on the saw flat. Then we swivel the saw blade to 31.62 degrees to the right. Then we tilt the blade itself to 34 degrees. Your miter saw should have these wonky measurements marked. Then you cut. When you put it up to the ceiling, it should look a little something like this:
Big gaps but since we were really careful to make sure the first piece was as flush to the wall and the ceiling as possible, the little wavy parts of the molding match up and we can then hide the gaps with caulk.
Not bad, huh? It’s amazing what caulk can do. If only we ladies had human caulk for our wrinkles and divets in our thighs. Then we could be chunky AND smooth 🙂
That looks really good! We just installed crown in our dining room and did a similar approach. We did cut each piece at an angle (propped it on the saw at the same 45 degree angle as it would go on the wall, then also cut it at a 45 degree angel), but no coping, so there were gaps which we filled in with caulk. You can’t tell once it’s painted. I have pics in my blog if you’re interested 🙂
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I have been trying to figure this out foreva and have had crown molding propped against the wall in my laundry room for about six months! I’ve been using a miter box and I plan on buying a miter saw during Lowe’s Black Friday sale. Katie, you rock!
I LOVE CAULK. It is indespensible. I would shout it from the rooftops if I didn’t think our neighbors would get judgey on us 🙂
I never realized what a life saver caulk is, but it really is. I do, however, have one tip: Do not buy the el cheapo $3 caulking gun. It will spew caulk all over the place and you’ll go through three rolls of paper towel trying to contain the spew-age. Buy a GOOD caulking gun (about $9) that is “dripless.” I got one that came with a couple caps and a little tool. The tool is stupid because your finger works just as well, but the cap is awesome. Caulk is cheap but it’s stupid to have to throw away a half-full tube just because there’s no way to preserve it.
Anyway, the dripless one is so nice. When you’re done squeezing the trigger, it stops spewing. Duh.
How on earth do you manage to make caulk so entertaining?
This is exactly how we did the window trim in my office. Except we were matching new to old so I did a little creative smoothing to make the ridges match up. Can’t tell that they don’t. My husband is going to love this super easy solution to the crown corners. Now if I can just convince him that we need crown molding in every room….And that he needs to paint it.
This looks great! Now I need to tell Robert he is allowed to buy a miter saw (and then spring the crown molding bomb on him)… 😉
Aren’t Botox and fillers human caulk? Those don’t come out as pretty as your crown molding though coughhousewivesofbeverlyhillscough.
Heehee Elyse…nice one. Now if only I could just shmear Botox on instead of needles, right?!
xo – kb
ok, this song really is stuck in my head, especially now that they use it on that punkin chunkin’ commercial. My husband is getting a little sick of me singing it lol
I just found this post at the perfect time! The Hubs is putting in crown molding in our bedroom (its the practice run for the rest of the house). He just bought a Miter Saw so he used that to make all the cuts, but there is a small gap at the top and the bottom of the molding. What type of caulk did you use to fill in those gaps? Then once you caulked, you used that FROG tape on the top and bottom and then painted, right? I think I saw that mentioned on another post. The Hubs wants to just do it all himself, but I figured I’d get a little advice first! Couldn’t hurt! hehe 🙂
Hi Jen,
We just used regular paintable caulk. I even think we used one tube of kitchen and bathroom caulk when we ran out. And yes, we used Frog tape.
xo – kb