How do I correctly size base board & crown mouldings

Nick Clayton

Member
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38
Location
Sudbury, MA
Hi All,

I am ready to start finish carpentry on our renovated bathroom. The room is small with about 5'x7' of floor space with 7' ceilings not including the tiled tub area. My wife and I would like to use crown moulding, but are unaware of how to size it to the room. Obviously a 6" crown would look silly, but would a 1 3/4" crown look too small?

Our house has classic 3 1/2" colonial baseboard profile should we stick with that for continuity or can we use 5" with an interesting cap? Door and window moldings are 2 1/4 colonial profile which we intend to stick with.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers,
Nick
 
the 1 3/4 might be a bit small, you usually want it larger than the door trim to stand out, but that's a pretty low ceiling. If you do go with that small, one trick is to add some picture moulding about 6" below the crown as another feature to make it look less "alone". I've also seen it done that way but everything from the picture moulding up was painted the same trim color, creating a cap around the room.
 
I would not go with anything bigger then 3-1/2". If you do it will pull the ceiling down lowr then it already is. You can use the full size base to tie into the rest of the house.
 
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