History Of Crown Moulding
Crown moulding is back in style and as it never been before, and has its many uses and benefits, from providing detail to a piece of furniture or creating a fine transition between a wall and a ceiling. Crown moulding can also be installed on the exterior of a house, providing architectural detail and character. There are many uses of crown moulding. With the right skill and vision for design, crown moulding will dramatically improve the look of your home or furniture.
Benefits and uses
Crown moulding is known to exist in a home or has been a part of the building tradition since the time of the Greeks and Romans. Providing classic architectural details, it sets the tone and mood of a room, ranging from ornate to modern. Crown moulding is traditionally found in upper class homes, but due to recent developments in manufacturing of new innovative materials, improved crown moulding installation techniques. Crown moulding can be found in pretty much any class and level of a home in and around Toronto.
Mouldings Come From Ancient Times
The ancient Greeks used crown moulding in their buildings to visually divide spaces. Mouldings were based on the shape of the ellipse, parabola and hyperbola. The Romans simplified these shapes, basing their mouldings on circles, developing the half-round and quarter-round shapes. Both the Greek and Roman versions of moulding are still in use today and are considered the building blocks of interior ornamentation. Early versions of mouldings were only available in stone type materials, plaster, granite, etc.
In European History
Before 1850, all crown moulding and woodwork in a home was traditionally made and shaped on-site by carpenters using hand planes, chisels and gouges, various carving tools. In example ornamental crown mouldings such as dentil moulding, had each piece of dentil carved and finished by hand, then nailed or glued to the larger crown moulding piece. As industrial technology expanded and developed, moulding manufacturing became far less tedious, introduction of steam and water powered mechanical planers, and shapers made it possible for mouldings to be mass produced. More elaborate and sophisticated styles of moulding were invented and the price became more affordable. Today there is a huge variety of mouldings to choose from, as well as many different materials that mouldings are made of.
Types of Crown Moulding
When you hear the term Crown moulding it is referenced to the moulding installed between wall and the ceiling at a 45 degree angle. Crown or cornice is projected on wall and ceiling, for example 5 inch wide cornice would project 3 1/2 inches on the wall and 3 1/2 inch on the ceiling. Crown moulding or crown cornice, creates a beautiful transition between wall and ceiling, eliminating boxed look, as well as hiding drywall imperfections. There are different types of moulding with different uses. There are many different classic styles of crown, such as cartouche, dentil, egg and dart and gullo
che. Crown can also provide decorative accents for architectural elements, such as built-in bookshelves and niches, and can be used in combination with other mouldings to add detail. A frieze moulding is a horizontal wall moulding that is a wide band, often with ornamental detail. It usually runs under crown moulding, one-third to one-half way down the wall. Often, the space from the frieze up to the cornice moulding is painted a different color from the rest of the wall. This type of moulding is common in rooms with high ceilings, as it visually brings the ceiling closer.
How to Use Crown
Moulding can enhance and improve appearance of any room, it creates and nice and balanced transition from wall to ceiling, defines and often makes ceiling appear higher. It increases a home's overall aesthetic appeal. As mentioned above modern crown moulding is relatively affordable, can be installed without any major disruption to your home, meaning no dust or damaged walls or ceilings.
Often crown moulding is used to hide ugly and improperly finished drywall joints at the wall and ceiling connection.
Crown moulding can hide speaker or electrical cables, reducing costs of electrical installation.
