Crown molding is a rather traditional and formal design element. From your photo, your house looks more contemporary and informal. That being the case, I think crown molding would look inappropriate in your room -- especially with the window on the right being so close to the ceiling. If you want to add some interest to the space, or pep it up a bit, you might want to think about doing something dramatic with colour. One possibility would be to paint the backs of your bookshelves a contrasting colour, or perhaps a darker more intense colour on one or all of the room walls. Hope this helps. James

Oh shoot -- I can't post pictures now (we're getting ready for our first day of nursery school!), but earlier this year we had miles of crown moulding installed on our crazy angled vaulted curved ceilings (we've got them all!). It looks terrific and, a la Goldilocks, "just right." Our former kitchen designer's cherry-picked GC flat-out told us "no, it's impossible to run crown on vaulted ceilings." This surprised us as we've seen it done in many homes, inc. my parents'! When we responded as such, with pictures, he still said it was impossible and that the pictures were doctored. ??? (Our kitchen designer's refusal to see that we wouldn't / couldn't work with her GC was one of only many reasons we also severed our relationship with her!) The GC with whom we did end up working said "sure you can do it -- it's not so easy, and there's only one of my guys I'll let do it, but of course it's possible." And now I live in the proof! I'll be back later with pictures! But in the meanwhile, I'd love to know the various heights of your vaulted ceiling, because a 4" void (as you propose with the chair) can seem large if you have an 8' height in some areas.

1. I belong to the school of thought that says crown molding should be a consistent colour throughout your home. Unless you have a lodge or cabin-type home, painted white, ecru, etc. is usually best. 2. Varying colours of white or varying strengths of paint on a vault or on the tiers of a tray ceiling give it an interesting depth. I personally don't care for tray ceilings that have some of the tiered surfaces or the sides of the tray painted with the wall colour or a contrasting strong colour. Just my opinion. 3. If you're considering painting the walls a darker colour at bottom that fades out towards the top, I can only assume you don't have a very formal dining room, although the dimensions you give would belie that. Your room size is nice and large, and a chair rail would not box anything in---it is really what one expects to see in a large dining room. It also allows you to "logically" paint one colour below the rail and another above. Good luck with your room!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><md>Thanks PPF for the suggestion! I appreciate someone actually giving me some practical advice. I will pass this on to the contractor. Wow Jan, you’re quite the positive one aren’t you?! I wasn’t asking for your opinion on the overall design of my house. I’m quite pleased with everything I’ve done in there! And I AM friends with a great electrician, but he hasn’t installed any of the lights in the living room yet. Nor has he finished installing all of the kitchen lights. Plus, I took this picture in the middle of the night last night so it looks much darker than it actually is in there. Thanks for your thoughtful input though. Patricia, it looks like flooring because it is flooring! I couldn’t find any “ceiling” boards that I liked or were wide enough, so we got creative. It’s acacia wood and it looks beautiful. I just wanted help with a trim piece, not redesigning/deconstructing my room!