This is a question of personal taste, so feel free to bend and break any old rules you may have heard about, especially if you’re backed by a bit of talent and the tips provided below.
Your crown molding and baseboards must not look exactly alike; however, these two elements are so important to your home’s final finishing that there should be some sort of cohesion between them. In order words, they shouldn’t look too much like twins, but they should at least look like siblings. They need to look like they go together in terms of design, not as if they were chosen separately. While your eye will usually catch one at a time, someone standing far enough back from the wall will see both at the same time, and you want the top and bottom of the wall to complement each other.
Here are some factors to consider when choosing baseboards and crown molding.
Should Crown Molding Have the Same Style as Baseboards?
It is always a good idea to match baseboards and crown molding according to their styles. Whether you are going for a pre-colonial style molding or you are into a more modern style, you will find that matching the same style of crown molding to baseboards often produces a cohesive end result. However, if for any reason you are unable to match your crown molding and baseboards by design, you can also match them by color or size.
Can You Paint Crown Molding and Baseboards Differently?
You can decide to give your room a gorgeous unified look by having all the trim painted the same color or with complementary colors. This way, the color serves as the unifying feature. Color is usually the easiest way to unite your crown molding with your baseboards.
Crown moldings cap interior walls and columns at the point where the wall meets the ceiling, most times offering a decorative finishing. Baseboard, on the other hand, connects your flooring to the walls. Both of these elements, often bold and beautiful, offer a certain form of exquisiteness to the feel of your home and are often a focal point of your interior décor, so having them painted the same color is never a bad idea.
Should Crown Molding Be the Same Size as Baseboards?
Traditionally, it is said that the best crown molding should be either the same width or a little bit smaller than the baseboard. If you want to give your space a cohesive and symmetrical look, then you should choose baseboards and crown moldings that have a similar width.
Baseboard and Crown Molding Ideas
At your local hardware stores, you’ll find that there are a thousand and one options for baseboards and crown moldings, and if you go shopping with nothing specific in mind, you might end up making terrible choices. What helps is to decide on a particular style before you set out to the store. Some styles to choose from include rustic, modern, Georgian, Colonial, Federal, old American crown molding, among others. It will do you a whole lot of good to look at pictures and decide what style best suits your taste before shopping for any trimmings.
Should Crown Molding Match the Ceiling?
The short answer is no! The ceiling does not necessarily need to match the crown. Many prefer to switch up the paint on the ceiling. You could try to make your ceiling a little bit darker than the crown molding to create a contrast. If you choose to have both your ceiling and crown molding painted white, you may want to paint the crown molding with glossy white paint and the ceiling with flat paint; this contrast would show off your crown molding and make your ceiling pop.
Should Baseboards Match Door/Window Trim?
The trim around the doors and windows is an important design detail that will offer an unavoidable input to the overall outlook of your interior design. You might design your window bay to look unique and magnificent, but with the wrong baseboards, you run the risk of losing its beauty.
Similarly, a beautifully finished trimmed door can look distasteful when you chose the wrong type of baseboards to go with it. Trims, baseboards, and crown moldings are very important features of your overall design, and you are better off picking out elements that complement each other.
Does Crown Molding Have to Be the Same Throughout the House?
You should make your mind up on what you like and go with that. There is no convincing reason to match all the way through an entire house. But let’s look at both sides of the coin. On the one hand, using the same molding all over the house would make your designing process a lot simpler. You won’t have to worry about running out of molding for any particular room as you’ll be using the same thing in all the rooms.
Additionally, when using the same crown molding throughout the house, the design process becomes a lot simpler as you’ll just be cutting and pasting the same stuff in every room. But you have to ask yourself if the above reasons are enough to reason to take this route.
You could choose to do something a lot more creative with your crown molding by changing up the crown molding in different rooms of the house. To do this, you can select different crown moldings based on different styles and costs. Using a variety of crown moldings all through the entire house adds a sense of creativity to your design process, and your guests would surely enjoy the house tours to come.
You also do not have to match the colors of your crown molding all through the house. It is okay to just maintain a cohesive color palette to get a more cohesive feel, but feel free to try out different colors, except in common areas where it would look better to have a consistent trim color.
What Colors Should You Paint Your Baseboards and Crown Molding?
Choosing a paint trim color can sometimes be overwhelming and understandably so. Choose the wrong color, and you could throw off the entire design, choose the right color, and you could bring some much-desired unity into your interior décor.
It goes without saying that you should try to pick a color that compliments the walls. Also, you should consider colors that are cool or neutral. White is a very popular option for trims. The reason for this is not far-fetched. It is versatile and therefore combines perfectly with any other colors you may have on your walls.
However, white is definitely not the only option for trims. Don’t be scared to make some bold choices here; after all, you can test your trim paints by doing a paint swatch with different colors before you decide what colors go best with your walls.
Another factor to consider when choosing paint for your baseboards and crown molding is contrast. To get your trimmings to match, you could simply create a contrast between them by using contrasting paint colors; for instance, consider using soft blue paint colors against a deeper blue wall or black against white walls. The latter is most definitely a choice for the bold and adventurous.
Another option is to select a glossy paint for your trimmings; for instance, if your walls are an eggshell color, you could try a glossy white paint on your trimmings. Glossy paint has been proven to be a lot more durable than your every-day paint because it is easier to get the dirt off them. Besides, the gloss also adds light to your room, making your walls pop.
Should I Paint my Walls before My Baseboards and Crown Moldings?
If you have some painting experience, then you should try starting out with the trimmings before going on to the walls. Once you are done painting the baseboards and crown molding, and they are completely dry, it would be quite easy to cover them up with painter’s tape then paint the walls. But if you paint the walls first, it is almost impossible to cover the entire wall up with tape; this means that you’ll have to take extra care not to mess up the walls while painting the trimmings.
However, if you consider yourself to be an inexperienced painter, then you should probably start off with the walls. Trims are typically narrow, often curved, and creased, and you’ll need to dedicate a lot of time to slowly painting them. Yet by the time you are done, the area of work achieved might look so small that you lose the motivation to keep painting.
Starting off with the walls provides almost instant gratification. You’ll instantly see your space become cozier and brighter, and you’ll be motivated to keep painting. Just remember to stock up on a lot of painter’s tape and don’t be scared to make a mistake while painting; it’s just paint, and you can always paint over it.
