With the interior doors now completely refinished throughout the house, we’re getting closer to bringing all the “old” in the house back to it’s original life. But there was still something missing to give the old plaster walls a more finished look. And for Dan, that was crown molding. When we first bought the house, the only room that had crown molding was the living room. And while not an original feature,  I have to agree that it really does help to bring a room together, while leaving the old charm of the house in tact.

Over the past year, we’ve been slowly adding crown molding to each room in the house, starting with the bedrooms, moving to the office, and even adding it to the upstairs bathroom.

What we quickly learned is that it’s not such an easy task when you have wavy, plaster, unsquare walls. Which made Dan’s desire for perfection in flush molding and perfectly squared corners all but impossible (nothing a little caulk couldn’t fix though, right?).

With our practice rounds of adding crown molding to other areas of the house now successfully completed, it was time to add to the foyer and upstairs hallway. Aside from the difficulty in squaring off the corners, this was a relatively painless project to complete.

Dan used the miter saw and a cutting guide to cut each angle, and then one by one we installed each piece. Another fun fact about plaster walls is that they also make nailing the molding into place a bit difficult too. So not only was Dan fighting to keep the molding flush against the wavy walls, but the nails/nail gun were apparently not powerful enough to drive through plaster. So there he went, with an old school hammer and nails. This made a little more work for him when it came to filling in the nail holes and then painting over them. But despite the few annoyances along the way, what looked to be a project of subtly proved to have not-so-subtle results.

Another update that we took on while installing crown molding was refinishing our attic door. When initially painting the house, we thought it’d be best to paint it the duller white color to blend with the rest of the ceiling. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that going in and out of the attic was going to leave dirty fingerprints on the attic door, and that paint with a satin-finish made it much more difficult to clean. We also had some issues with the paint peeling off of the door, so we decided to just refinish the entire thing.

After sanding it down to bare wood, we reapplied a glossier white paint – Cashmere – that we used on the baseboards and molding throughout the house. Another subtle change, and this one was more for utility, but also helped to finish the look of the upstairs hallway.

And with that, the trim throughout the house is now (finally) complete. One step closer to a completely renovated home.