Oct 19 2010
Using Decorative Molding in Your Home
If youre looking for a great way to enhance the dcor of your home and highlight certain features, consider decorative molding. Decorative molding can add style and character to your walls, ceilings, and floors. Best of all, it give the room a finished and attractive look. If youre looking for different places in your home to use decorative molding, here are some suggestions.
Use Decorative Molding around the Ceiling
One of the most common areas where decorative molding is used is around the ceiling. The ever popular decorative crown molding gives a sophisticated and polished look to the ceiling and walls. You hang the molding right where the wall meets the ceiling. What it does is add a small decorative touch to an otherwise boring area of the room. You should be able to find this type of molding in a range of sizes, anywhere from 3 to 12 in width.
Use Decorative Molding along the Floor
The flooring space is another common place where decorative molding is used. Just as with the ceiling molding, you place it where the floor meets the wall. What this basically does is finish the wall into the floor, giving the room a polished look. Commonly called baseboard, this type of molding is both decorative and functional, as it protects the walls from those scratches and scrapes made by furniture and other objects.
Use Decorative Molding along a Wall
Another way to use decorative molding is to create what is known as a chair rail. This is a section of molding that is added all around the length of the room at a height thats usually slightly lower than the middle of the wall. People will often then place wainscoting or paint the lower half of the wall. A chair rail is a great way to add some style and interest to a wall without going overboard.
Use Decorative Molding around a Window
Installing decorative molding around a window works to highlight that area and really plays up the beauty of the light coming through. This is also a terrific way to seal any gaps between the window and the wall, preventing air from escaping or entering the house. Most likely you will need to find a sill for the bottom part of the window that matches the rest of the molding.
Use Decorative Molding around a Door
Decorative molding also works great around doors. For those rooms where youve already installed molding on the windows, try to find matching molding for the door. Just like with the windows, the molding will cover any gaps between the door and wall, hiding any blemishes and adding style and appeal to the room as well.
Decorative molding can be used in your home in all these ways and more. Keep in mind, though, that if you use a certain type of molding one place in the room, use that same type of molding elsewhere. You can really pull together a room by using molding with the same color, width, or design, creating a cohesive look for your home.
About the Writer…
Leon Tuberman has been part of the home furnishings and interior decorating business for four decades. He is the owner and manager of popular furniture store in California. They carry a large selection of American made solid wood furniture for your home office, dining room and bedroom. Whether you’re looking for an oak bookshelf for your study area or a solid oak bed for your master bedroomthen they have everything you need.