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If
your ceiling is stippled, remove the texture spray so the
molding will fit cleanly. Use a putty knife and a spray water
bottle to knock off unpainted stipple. Painted stipple requires
a hooked paint scraper and more effort. A neat border extending
1" to 2" in front of the crown molding gives ample
room to work and replicates decorative plasterwork of old.
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| Using
a gauge block to make tick marks on the ceiling
and wall. |
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Layout
It's easy to install crown molding at the wrong spring angle,
which will look fine until you get to the corners. Corner joints
will readily fit together without large gaps only when they
are at the correct angle. Using a small off-cut of molding and
a piece of graph paper, determine the true horizontal and vertical
projection of the crown. These will normally be the same measurement,
as the vast majority of crown molding sold in Canada is manufactured
with a 45° spring angle from the wall, while the American
standard is 38°. Cut a small square of plywood this size
to make a gauge block that can be used to make tick marks on
the ceiling and wall where the molding edges should lie.
However, inconsistencies in the framing and drywall mean neither ceiling
nor wall will be perfectly straight. After lopping off the
top corner of your gauge block to negate the worst effects
of bad corner taping, you'll still see a series of tick marks
that seemingly wander up and down around the room. When installing
the molding, you will know it's at the correct spring angle
when, on balance, the number of tick marks still exposed on
the ceiling matches the number still visible on the wall.
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