Molding Matters

Our new home needed a touch up, and I found an opportunity to try something new.

When we bought our new home, we noticed that crown-molding was conspicuously missing from our living room, even though it was already in the study and dining room. This worked out, though, because I needed to place the rear surrounds in my home theater, and needed somewhere to hide the wire.

I thought I could fish the wires behind the wall at the front of the room, but it proved to be just beyond my reach, so I had to call someone. I was trying to do it the hardest way possible, plus I had a Cat5e wire to run from an upstairs bedroom, and it wasn't gonna happen for me. Now the wires are neatly located in the wall and all I have to do is run the crown-molding.

My in-laws came to visit with Crumbsnatcher this weekend, and my father-in-law helped me with the installation. I also had the help of Tom Silva via the articles and vidoes on This Old House's website. They were very helpful, but they neglected to cover corners with angles greater than 90 degrees, and I have two. I also ended up just under 2 feet short, so I have to find another piece to be able to finish.

I could have finished today, but the big blue hardware and lumber retailer doesn't have the same molding in stock as the kind I special ordered from them. Writing that sounds wrong, but the only reason I special ordered is that they didn't carry 16' lengths. When we were trying to mock-up a corner we discovered that the piece I bought to finish one wall was slightly different from the rest. Hopefully I won't have to order more, because the pieces that I just got took nearly 3 weeks to come in, and I don't want to wait another 3 weeks for one piece.

What we did get done looks good, though I still have to finish it with some caulking and paint so it will match the rest of the house. I only had to cut a couple of small notches for my wires to exit the molding, which you can't see when the speakers are in place.

In all I'm proud of the work we did, and I did it much cheaper than someone would have charged me. Now I have a better idea of how to fish wire, so I can try it again the next time I need something like that.