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Design Dilemma Building a Home Woodworking

help! distance between crown moulding and casing too tight

last year

On the second floor, we have 9 feet ceiling. Doors are likely 8 feet and already ordered. The door casing is 4.5” and already ordered. Doors can’t be adjusted. Casing can’t be adjusted but maybe it can. Crown moulding is 5.5” ceiling and down from there but maybe I can reduce to 4” or 4.5”. Crown moulding is like 8” about 5.5 from ceiling down and 3” from ceiling horizontally on the top.

The current setup only leaves 0.5” to 0.75” between the door casing and bottom of crown moulding. This is option 1. The only reason to keep this is because I have the open stairs and open to below at entry and the bigger moulding here will be visible from the main floor.

Option 2 is reduce the crown moulding to 4” vertically and keep it 3” horizontally. This makes the doors area look better on second but the moulding smaller for the open to below and stairs. See pictures.

I’ve included pictures of the master door opening the sample crown moulding at the top. The distance between moulding and casing. The stairs ceiling and the open to below ceiling. All the same moulding will be here.

Thoughts??

Featured Answer

PRO

Kristin Petro Interiors, Inc.

last year

Add a trim piece above the doors to meet the crown, like this:

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Comments (11)

bry911
last year
What type of casing are you using (a picture would be best)?

If the casing doesn't have a lot of projection you should build it up and wrap the crown around it. Here is an old Houzz thread that I found someone has done it. https://www.houzz.com/discussions/2305267/crown-moulding-touches-window-trim-opinions-ideas
3onthetree
last year
The size of that crown seems out of proportion for the ceiling heights and room sizes.
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handymac, thank you for the suggestion. If it's what I think it is, I remember seeing it on This Old House's website where Tom Silva was putting up crown. He was going to nail it the normal way because the tutorial wasn't about truss uplift. But the same triangular-wedge 'cripple' could apply I think. The key, if I'm interpreting you correctly, is to nail the 'wedge' only to the ceiling and then nail the crown in the center of the wedge angling the nail up so as not to catch any of the wall. It's definitely worth a try. The only difficulty I can foresee is being able to nail that wedge into the ceiling and hoping the truss bottom (forget the term now) is right on top of - or at least overhanging a bit - the joist(?). You know, the structure at the top of the studs. Again, not sure of the term. If we don't catch that truss wood when nailing the 'wedge', which will be holding the crown, then we'd either be nailing into that joist and defeat the purpose or just nailing into ceiling drywall! I agree that those ring-shanks are the way to go for the wedge. So, perhaps that'll cover our a$$es if we don't catch wood. lsst, I've heard about that 'stretchy' caulk. Never tried it though. I think seasons and seasons of using regular caulk - that ultimately separated - kind of shied us away from anything that even had the word "caulk" in it. :( But I'll check it out again. If you have the name of the product you used, I'd really appreciate it. green-zeus, yes, that's the key to putting up crown for this purpose. Nailing it to the walls would defeat that purpose. As I said, the problem, thus far has been trying to figure out how to only nail it to the ceiling. The top nail surface on any crown doesn't leave much fudge room to nail w/o splitting the wood. But, handymac's suggestion sounds doable. At least it's worth a shot! :) I'm still curious if anyone's tried that peel-n-stick or polystyrene formed crown. Maybe I should make a separate post for that. Thanks again!
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I am so grateful for this feedback I have received today. And thank you again PPF and Bryan911 for all the helpful details. I am going to see about a new upper cabinet. We’ve put too much into this project to let two upper cabinets good us up :) I had a lot of people including a designer I hired for a short time out eyes on this, and we still missed it. Just goes to show you how difficult it can be to build a house and get all the details to work out as hoped. PPF — the reason we broke up the expanse of the pantry door with shaker panels was since we wanted it to look integrates with the cabinetry and to break up the tall doors since we have 10’ ceilings. I do agree also about hinges that can be hidden. It also annoys me that they are such a bright gold when my lights and cabinet hardware will be more of an aged, satin brass. Is it easy to switch out hinges and not mess up the doors?
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J Sk
last year
last modified: last year
I agree with @3onthetree. I think both crown and door casing are too wide. It overwhelms the space. Everything needs right proportions to look good.
millworkman
last year
That is an 8" +/- crown moulding, get a 4 1/2" crown (measure diagonally as the width)/ That is definitely to big for the application. And would definitely crown your doors and trim.
PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
last year
I agree the trim is too large for the space .Why 8' doors when you were planning crown . Now the best is to make the crown smaller and if the door trim can be changed that too. IMO bedroom levels can easily go with no crown
res2architect
last year
last modified: last year
What is meant by "likely 8 ft"; do you not know the door height that was ordered?

What is meant by "Casing can’t be adjusted but maybe it can"?

You describe the moulding as a crown but show a cove. IMO the cove is much too large and a crown might be better.

Get some smaller cove and crown samples and mock up the door and ceiling trim until you find a good compromise.

This shoud be a visual rather than a math exercise.
cpartist
last year
last modified: last year
The size of that crown seems out of proportion for the ceiling heights and room sizes.

Actually I think the 8' doors are the issue. I have 9' ceilings in my second floor and went from 8' doors on the first floor (10' ceilings) to 6'8" doors on the second floor.

I agree though that either way the molding is too large.
Rick M
Original Author
last year
Thanks everyone I agree. I think this is a 96” door. I’ve already ordered it so can’t change it the door.
In retrospect door should not be as tall.

Will likely keep moulding big and door areas will look very tight but then my open to below at entry will have the bigger moulding when you look up from first floor and also stairs open area. All visible from first floor so will eat that trade off.
PRO
Mark Bischak, Architect
last year
The third image reminds me of a Rorschach test.
Gerry
last year
To me, it matters less on how it’s viewed from below than how odd it will look when you’re upstairs. I would reduce the crown up there.

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