Crown Molding

I'm not sure where Ilana got the idea for crown molding, but I'm glad she did. After we finished painting the walls the other weekend, the next step was to install crown molding. Luckily, Home Depot doesn't have a huge selection of molding for ceilings, so we got a small sample of one and brought it home. We hung up the 3 foot section to see how we felt about it. My mom came over and immediately asked, "is that upside down?" After doing some research online, we determined she was correct.

So it was back to Home Depot for the "Pro Pack" of molding, cut in half by a nice employee there so that I could fit all the pieces in the Prius. And now, you can simply follow along with our process:

Step 1: I laid out all the strips and painted them first. This was Saturday (2/28). I have to say it was a much more enjoyable process with the ability to listen to the Giants on the radio.


Step 2: Get a lesson on mitre saw from Seymour. The mitre saw was another amazing offering from Berkeley's Tool Lending Library. This was Sunday (3/1).




Step 3: Use mitre saw to cut molding. Many thanks to Jim F. for the molding book that specified the exact angles needed for our measurements. Nevermind that I misread the molding angle the first time and we had to take 4 pieces down off the wall to do them properly.





Step 4: Nail the crown molding up. That's right, by hand (the Tool Library doesn't have items that can be used as weapons, like nail guns).



Step 5: Enjoy the idea of the crown molding, complete with unfinished nail work.






Step 6: Wait one week.

Step 7: Fill the gaps and nail holes with goo. Ilana did an amazing job of completing my less-than-perfect angles and corners. This was yesterday (Saturday, 3/7).



Step 8: Use bare hands for truly sophisticated looking results.










Step 9: Paint the corners, connectors, and nail holes for a good finished look. Picasso-style is optional. Don't worry, this was just for the corners; I used a larger brush for the rest of my work.

Step 10: Enjoy. This is our best set of corners. Not coincidentally, they were also the last I installed. Further, our "closet" here has no texture, which also made it easier. Either way, it's a beaut!

This photo gives you a sense of the whole room.

Now we actually get to consider hanging up some of our awesome and almost forgotten artwork.

So that's why it's called duct tape.

Though there was definitely a sense of completion after we got the counters and sink in (as evidenced by our victory pizza), we are not yet done with the kitchen. There are finishing touches to put on, as well as a few small construction projects. The first was the cabinet and microwave that lived over the stove. We had been ignoring them, as they did not impede any of our other tasks and our goal was to get a functioning kitchen again. But now that functionality was taken care of, it was time to tear down one more cabinet.

I was so excited to get these things down that I failed to take a good "before" picture. Here's the black microwave that had no place in our white kitchen (and, to be perfectly honest, was pretty disgusting), and the last of the original cabinets. And yes, like the other ones, this one was nailed into the wall with four inch nails and was just as difficult to rip down. Didn't they have screws back in 1969?

Because I don't like to make anything easy, I also decided to take out a piece of drywall that had some old water damage. It was a pain to have to cut and hang a new piece (notice there's an air vent and an outlet), as well as seal and spackle it, but I'm glad I did it and ensured there are no current water issues.




Because the new cabinet was about 3 inches taller than the previous one, I had to cut a filler piece of duct to get the stove fan vent to make it out of the house. And yes, I finally realized why it was called duct tape.






Here is the final product. We are now officially done installing cabinets, and all of our appliances have been updated.

Next up, constructing a box for lights above the pass through and a pantry.