Is nearby a means of access to net crown molding look thicker? We have an old house built surrounded by the 1920's with the...
We have an old house built surrounded by the 1920's with the nice thick underneath molding. The rooms have crown molding that you can tell is not inventive, it is really skimpy and doesn't look right with our high ceiling (we have 9' ceilings.) Is nearby anything we can add to it or do to make it look thicker in need completely replacing it?
If the moulding is painted, you could take it down and put some plywood strips on the inside then staple it back in place.
It would be tricky, since the moulding is at the top of your room and the wood is probally markedly dry, it will have the tendancy to crack.
Check with Lowes, they pass a paintable plastic moulding that will look good from the floor.
You can add more molding to the existing molding to make it look more substantial.
However, the woodwork contained by the house is so nice, and you think the existing molding is not original, you may consider taking the existing molding down and replacing it next to something more substantial, to fit better with the rest of the woodwork. Because the woodwork from the doors and windows is not far below the ceiling, you may consider fine art the new molding white, or the same color as the ceiling, so that it doesn't bring the ceiling down, or fairly make it look lower than it is. They do this on tv sometimes on HGTV. They will add a piece of showy molding to the bottom of the crown molding so that it looks like thicker crown. Or they will even put the extra piece a couple inches under the crown and paint the investigational piece and the in between space the same color as the crown to dispense the effect of larger molding.
Answers: Paint a six inch border all the way around the room right lower than the crown moulding, using a dark color paint to contrast with the rest of the wall color. Just paint one wall first and see if you similar to it. Easy enough to undo if you don't (assuming you enjoy some left over wall paint). Much easier than stain matching and installing spanking new crown moulding, and it creates its own sort of antique look that's very classy, without looking approaching you tried to "fix" something.
Yes you can add another peice of molding around the limits of the existing molding Well, youre probably going to have to pull it stale to achieve the look you want.
In the old homes where on earth crown moulding was used, they typically used a wider board to start with (as very well as thicker than most of today's crown). Another common practice was to 'build it up'... by using multiple layer of wood. It wasnt unusual to see 1 piece at the ceiling (flat up against it), a 2nd piece flat against the wall, with a 3rd piece running between the two, and the third piece might or might not be installed at an angle, to the ceiling.often they have a square back to them.
Today, youve got a choice between wood, mdf, or even styrene products (stiff styrofoam). Architectural mouldings can be bought near 'carving' along the length of the moulding.
IF.. big IF. your crown has a life-size flat edge facing down the wall, or across the ceiling, then you MIGHT be capable of attach another piece of trim adjacent to the crown, to 'widen' the look. For example, on this product page - http://www.mouldings.cc/english/Products...
You find item number AMM - 68CR has a relatively 'wide' boundary you could install another piece of flat trim up against. The other items on that particular page have one huge and one narrow edge... and the single curved piece would be fundamentally difficult to run something next to it. It and the other pieces would be handled better by applying layer behind them, and 'building up' the crown trim.
Really, by the time you find/make a custom thickness trim piece to complement your existing trim, and next try to finish it to match... you're going to be spending about as much as it would run to replace it entirely... and replacing it will go a lot faster.
Try doing an Image Search for 'crown moulding' on Yahoo... you'll find adjectives kinds of photos of different mouldings; make it a net search, and you'll find all kind of suppliers.
Have Fun