It’s isn’t often we have funny moulding stories but two in one day is too much to ask. After driving an hour, I pulled up to this rather large home situated not far from one of the local golf courses. Once inside, it was easy to see that this home had lots of moulding – some of which looked pretty good.
The master of the house leads me into the kitchen so I can drop off my sales materials. He then walks me to a large family room with 18 foot ceilings and says, “I want crown put in here.”
I look up and see a two piece crown already in place and point it out to him. Wow, was he embarrassed!! I guess he never looked up and that was probably a good thing… The moulding was in poor shape, sagging down a bit, cracked caulk lines, plus there was a very poor joint between two pieces on the long wall.
After looking around a bit, I determined his moulding looked “off” but it took me a moment to see why. While the crowns were one, two, and three piece, the casings around the passages and doors were way too thin and narrow. This was proved by holding a sample up to the dining room passageway.
In extreme cases like this one, we call in not one of our design consultants but a licensed interior decorator/designer to work with the client. A decorator in this instance will do more than just concentrate on trim.
On his side, Kevin went out to see a client in a town house. The reason the wife called was that her husband had installed the moulding so poorly it was an embarrassment to her. Kevin took pictures. The gaps were a half inch in the middle of the room and the moulding was nailed flat against the wall. It seems the husband watched a DIY video about installing crown. Well, I could watch a video of brain surgery, but that doesn’t mean I have the skills to really do it. And brain surgery is just like moulding, only easier.
