DIY Home Improvement Guide

Crown Molding On Cabinets – Is It Right For Your Home?

With cabinet crown molding being as easy as it is to install, and the huge impact that it makes in the home, many people are jumping to do install it.  Unfortunately, many kitchens and bathrooms just aren’t cut out for the look of crown molding.  In this post I want to share with you why this is and how to determine if your home is a good fit for kitchen cabinet crown molding.

It’s unfortunate that some homes just don’t jive with crown molding on cabinets, because when it does work it looks fantastic.  When it doesn’t work, it just looks tacky!  This is obviously my opinion, but I’ve helped clients decide on this before and many of them thanked me when I was able to talk them out of installing crown molding.  Take it for what it’s worth, I just don’t want you to be unhappy with your decision to install, if you pass on it now you can always install it later after you’ve forgotten all about reading this!

The key to kitchen crown molding is space.  Many people install it on cabinets that aren’t attached to the wall, and this is fine, but if there is only a few inches of space between the top of the molding and the ceiling it looks like you forgot the rest of it!  When there is more than 6 or 8 feet from the top of the cabinet very ornate molding can create a weird optical illusion that the walls are bowing inward (no I wasn’t drinking when I figured this out!).  Mellow crown molding works best with very tall ceilings.

When the cabinet butts up with the ceiling and molding is installed, it usually looks great, except in really small spaces.  Small kitchens and bathrooms feel even smaller when there is molding installed.

What’s the best situation for crown molding on cabinets?

If the ceiling does not butt up with the cabinets, having anywhere between a foot and six feet of space to the ceiling is ideal for balance and appearance.  This gives you the space to store decorations on top without creating negative space up there.

For ceilings that do butt with the cabinets, do it in large areas or you get a claustrophobic feeling.

Like I said above, this is my opinion and I don’t mind if someone were to tell me that I’m wrong.  If you want to send me pictures as a rebuttal, I’ll gladly use them in a post that explains how awesome your crown molding installation is!

Cabinet Crown Molding

Cabinet crown molding is one of the easiest ways to bring those boring boxes on your walls to life.  Crown molding is more visually appealing because it adds depth, dimension, and new lines to anything.  In this post I want to show you how to get the most of your cabinet crown molding, as well as some uses that you might not have already though of.

There’s a strange optical illusion that happens when there is crown molding on cabinets.  Since the right angle is removed from the butt of the cabinet and the ceiling, the cabinet looks much larger than it did before.  Use this to your advantage in big and open kitchens, but keep in mind that in cramped kitchens and bathrooms it may make the rest of the room feel smaller.

Kitchen cabinet crown molding is the most common type.  It’s generally half the size of wall crown molding because the doors of the cabinet don’t permit larger sizes.  If there is a large space between your cabinet doors and the ceiling you have the option between the two.

As I discussed in another post, but feel it’s worth sharing here, one of the best and most creative uses I’ve seen with crown molding on kitchen cabinets was at the bottom of it, rather than at the top.  The home had a tile back splash that had molding on the top that led into the bottom of the cabinet.  This might sound strange at first, but it created a very smooth and natural transition from the wall into the cabinet.

Another creative use is to get narrow molding and install it below the lip of the counter.  You’re probably going to have to have custom molding made for this, but it is a really cool look.

Cabinet crown molding is an often overlooked home accessory that makes a huge difference in any room that it’s installed in.  I recommend getting a couple feet of scrap molding and play around with it in different places in your kitchen and bathroom.  You’re going to find some creative uses once you see it in different places!

Kitchen Crown Molding Makes A Huge Impact

Kitchen crown molding is a simple way to make a huge impact in any kitchen.  Why does it make a big impact?  Because most people don’t do it!  Kitchen cabinet crown molding is one of the best ways to set your home apart from everyone else.  In this post I want to share with you how to use it and how to avoid some common installation problems.

Compared to traditional molding, most cabinet crown molding is thinner, but if you have large cabinets you can use either size.  The space between the top of your cabinet door and the ceiling will determine which size you use, but either way it looks great.

It will normally be installed at the butt of the cabinet and the ceiling, but there are other creative uses.  One of my favorite installations that I’ve seen was in a house on the East Coast that had dark mahogany cabinets with crown molding on the underside against the wall, essentially the top of the tile back splash.   It looked very cool and took away some of the hard angles that the kitchen originally had.

Installing crown molding on kitchen cabinets is easy, but getting it to look right can be challenging.  When you install molding on walls, most times the ceiling and the walls are white, so you paint the molding white and it looks awesome.  Most kitchen cabinets are stained, which fades over time, so when you stain your kitchen crown molding it’s going to end up a different color than the cabinet!

How do you solve this problem?  The difficult way is to redo the stain on the cabinets as well, the lazy way is to leave it and let it fade over time, but the smart way is to stain the molding in steps over time.  Stain the molding until it’s a few shades lighter than your cabinets, let it dry, add another coat of stain the next day and check to see how close it is.  Repeat until you get it right.  This obviously takes longer, but it’s well worth it when your cabinets look fantastic.

Kitchen crown molding is an excellent way to bring your kitchen to life.  It’s a fairly easy project that can be done with simple tools and a bit of patience.

Kitchen Cabinet Crown Molding

There are many little details that can make a home feel really “complete” and kitchen cabinet crown molding is definitely one of them.  Crown molding for kitchen cabinets is a really easy project when you’re in the middle of refinishing or installing your cabinets.  If you are planning on adding molding to already finished cabinets, it can be a bit trickier and we’ll get to that later.

Usually a kitchen cabinet molding is smaller than your traditional wall moldings.  There really isn’t enough space on most cabinets to fit full size molding on the top of it!

Installing kitchen cabinet crown molding on unfinished cabinets is as simple as using small nails and adhesive to secure it to the ceiling and cabinet and filling any gaps with caulk.  In most cases you’ll want to finish or paint it the same time that you do the cabinets so you can make sure that they have the look to them.

Adding a kitchen cabinets crown molding when the cabinet is already painted or finished is tricky, even if you are using the same color paint or finish.  The reason for this is that the finish fades over time so you’re going to have either live with it, work to “fade” it, or finish it a different color.  I don’t want to hold you back from installing kitchen cabinet crown molding, but be ready to make it work!

Their light weight and ease of install make this the perfect DIY project.  If you’re already tearing your kitchen apart, why not put it back together even better than you had planned on?

Polyurethane Crown Molding

The only person that knows that your crown molding isn’t wood is going to be you!  Polyurethane crown molding works just as good, if not better, than regular wood.  It can be used both indoors and outdoors, and is cut, sanded, glued, and nailed just the same as wood.  Even better, at the end of the day your arms are going to be much less tired because it only weighs a fraction of what wood does!

Polyurethane is a very dense foam that has many of the same qualities that wood does, but without all of the splinters and inconsistencies.  Most crown moldings will come to you smooth, primed,  and ready for paint.

Due to the mild flexibility of polyurethane you have to be sure to use adhesive and nails into the studs of the wall.  The extra precaution isn’t to prevent it from falling, rather to keep it from sagging between the nails.  This isn’t a major issue, because most installations will require that you use both.

Another added bonus is that there is no worry of rotting and bug infestation like there is with wood.  This aspect of polyurethane is excellent for crown molding, but terrible for landfills.  It’s known for creating some environmental issues, but you can offset the use of polyurethane crown molding by reducing the need for trees.

Faux Crown Molding

Faux crown molding is pretty sweet.  There are obviously going to be those that discredit it for not really being wood, but the thing is that they probably will never know!

Faux wood crown molding is way easier to install then the real stuff.  It paints the same and looks the same.  There is no sawing involved, no mitering, you just get a kit and install it!

It all works along the same lines as flexible crown molding.  It’s usually made from plastic (there are other materials too) but since it is so lightweight compared to wood it can usually be installed with just adhesive.  Also, with plastic you never have to worry about shrinkage or warping, it will always hold its shape.

There is also an alternative to plastic crown molding (I guess you could call it faux faux crown molding!) that is a specially created foam that is painted just the same and even more lightweight.  With this foam material you can create any shape imaginable, whereas with wood there aren’t an infinite amount of designs or routers to create the molding.

Both the plastic and foam moldings are easiest to find online, but there are becoming more and more local stores that are carrying it as its popularity is increasing.  I always recommend starting your research online so that you know what is out there and what it’s going to cost, then looking locally to try and help out your neighbors.  Either way you go, faux crown molding is an excellent choice.  It’s cheaper than wood, lasts longer, and is much easier to install.

MDF Crown Molding

MDF crown molding is an excellent choice for giving your home a very complete look.  MDF works very well because it is easy to cut and will last as long as your home does.  Another thing that draws people to MDF is its consistency.  Since it’s fiber board you don’t have to worry about knots and splinters like you do with regular “tree wood”.

Painting MDF crown molding requires a serious coat of primer.  MDF sucks down paint, so you have to take all necessary measures to make sure that there aren’t blemishes or light spots.  Be sure to give a light sand between all coats of primer or paint (after the paint has dried, of course) to get a real professional look.  The ability that MDF has to be stained makes it great for cabinet crown molding.  This is especially helpful when it comes to kitchen cabinet crown molding because many times you’re going to be installing it onto existing cabinets that may have been stained years ago and have faded since.  Having the ability to apply stain one coat at a time and have it absorb fast means that it takes less time to get your stain to look like the same level of “fade” that the cabinets they’re going to be installed on have.

On installation be absolutely sure that you’re getting the nails into the studs.  You may even want to nail these by hand to be even more cautious.  MDF is dense and can bow from gravity away from the wall.  It will appear that it’s been warped or shrunk, but gravity is just taking its toll on a lazy installation job.

MDF crown molding pricing varies a lot from area to area.  In most regions (like mine!) it runs about the same price as maple crown molding.  I’ve heard of it being prohibitively expensive in other regions, so be sure to shop around before making a buying decision.

Painting Crown Molding

Painting crown molding is an easy but time consuming job.  Taking shortcuts and skipping steps will really show once all is said and done.  Dedicate plenty of time to painting once you have all of the planning done!

Planning the color may seem easy, but you have to consider what the color will look like if you have a very open house that allows you to see walls from different rooms.  Also, consider how you’re going to switch from one color to the next, does it happen between two walls or is an abrupt transition?  There really isn’t a specific crown molding paint that you should use, any paint that works with wood will work out just fine.

Many people wonder whether cabinet crown molding is supposed to match the color of the cabinet or the color of the wall/ceiling.  There isn’t a cookie cutter answer for this, and the answer varies from the kitchen to the bathroom.  Many people will stain or paint kitchen cabinet crown molding to match the cabinet.  In the bathroom many people will do the opposite and paint it the color of the ceiling, or a totally different color altogether.  What you can do is to paint a few scrap pieces different colors and test them out to see which one you like the best.

As for the actual painting, a primer is an absolute must.  There is going to be a lot of this painted crown molding in your house so flaws and blemishes are going to be noticeable.  Pay attention when you’re buying crown molding as to whether or not it’s been pre-primed, many already are.  If you lucked out with pre-primed molding, give it a quick and light sand then move on to painting.  If you’re working with untreated wood, use a high quality primer and be sure to give it plenty of time to dry before moving on to painting.

After priming the wood, give it a light sand with a high-grit sandpaper (220 or s0), clean off all of the dust, and get painting.  This is just like all other painting jobs you’ve done, so there shouldn’t be any surprises here, but using a brush that is a bit wider than the molding will save you some time.

I’m sure that you don’t want to have to go back up and paint all of the molding every few years, so spend the time to give it a quality second coat.  Sand and clean it the same as you did after priming and slather on that last coat.

Flexible Crown Molding

Flexible crown molding is one the coolest inventions of recent time.  Before, any molding that was to go around a round surface had to be either carved in or made completely from scratch.  Both of those options are expensive and time consuming.  Sure, flexible crown molding is a bit more expensive than the standard wooden faire, but way cheaper than the alternative.

Installing flexible crown molding can be a bit of a pain.  It is generally secured with a polyurethane adhesive which allows some expansion and contraction due to the weather, but it has gravity going against it while the glue is setting.  Depending on humidity levels and type of adhesive, the molding is in spot to slide down the wall for a little while.  You can get around this by either holding it in place (which sucks) or hammering a few small nails that won’t be visible after they’ve been removed.  When working with most types of flexible crown molding it should be warmed up to at least 60 degrees Fahrenheit so that it will become pliable and not crack when the nails go into it.

Flexible crown moulding is a great choice for finishing round rooms and columns.  It’s easy to work with and fairly easy to install.  That sounds like the perfect job for the handy DIY’er!

Window Crown Molding

Window crown molding is an excellent way to add distinction and style to either the interior or exterior of your home.  The best part of crown molding window trim is that it’s cheap and easy to install.  It only takes a saw, level, can of pain, and hammer and nails to get the job done.

The design that you choose is up to you.  It can either match the existing molding that you have, or be something different to add more accent to the window.  Most DIY’ers will paint the molding to match any existing molding or accents already in the home.

For exterior window crown molding you can use the polyurethane type to help it last as long as the house does.  Polyurethane isn’t great for the environment, but it will prevent you from having to repeatedly replace molding as time goes on.  Wood molding can be painted to be weatherproof as well, so you can choose from either option.

There aren’t a lot of things that look as classy as a well designed molding and window shutter combination.  Those two details can really help a home stand out from the rest of the houses on the block.