Ending crown/chair trim in mid of wall?
Wanted to get some opinions as to the best approach for terminating a run of crown and chairrail mouldings with picture frames and subrail underneath, the whole lower part painted white.
I have a room with three entryways which I am trimming out. Two entries are cased, third entry essentially straddles the corner of the room and opens into a another room at a 45 degree angle, so that there is one 90 angle which faces a short ~ 2ft 45 degree portion (see attached poorly drawn diagram!). The opening is floor to ceiling, so casing it will not look right. I thought about angle molding but the one angle is 45 so that will not work. right now I am thinking a piece of 1 1/2 x 1/4 flat against the wall.
Any suggestions?
Replies
return it to the wall
I concur. The return method really looks good .
simple problem ...
simple return.
Jeff
If you dont understand them, what they mean is to back cut the rail at a 45 degrees, then cut a small piece at 45 that fits basically in behind to fill the back cut gap. The profile will show up from the front and side and it covers the endgrain. This is common on aprons under window sills with profile molding.
If you had a top down view of the centerline of the rail, with the "end caps" it would look like a safety handrail coming out of the wall. 90 turn, straight, 90 turn.
-zen
I was firmly in the "return" camp, until I went back and reread the part about the lower half being painted white. Looking at it a second time, I take to mean that the chair-rail separates two colours (?).
If my interpretation is correct, then you should, IMHO, treat this like wainscotting and return the chair-rail down to the base (i.e. 90º the rail straight down and merge it to the base using a plith as a neutral convergence for the rail and base - you're the only one who can see the profile details, so you have to work out the best convergence arangement)
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
I should have added: to my eye, having an orphan piece of trim for the verticle closure never looks right, it'll always be an orphan; better to run the same trim as the horrizontal, in this case the chair-rail, as the verticle too. BUT, you need a way to terminate it at the base, so that's why you need a plith-block right there..
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
Yup, that is it! Exactly what I was asking. Without running the chairrail vertical, the white lower half would sort of end in space (at the corner or the chamfered corner). I understand turning the rail down, but would I then butt the subrail into that vertical piece also?
I'd have to actually hold/play with some pieces before making a firm suggestion: my first guess would be to contine shadowing the main rain right down to the base, but very close together..
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
I was nodding along until I got to Phil's post--I'm thinking he's right, what you likely need is some sort of cased opening there, if only to define where the pint below starts and stops.
That being said, it's looking like tough sledding, with an outside corner opposite a chamfered corner. Wish I had a good answer for that.
Mr. Moore,
Die both the crown and chair into a plinth, then run a verticle piece between the plinths.
SamT
By picture frame do you mean a simple mitered rectangle nailed to the wall?
And is the sub-rail you mention baseboard?
So if I have this right, a chair rail circles the room with picture frames in place of wainscott below and then baseboard. The wall above the chair rail is painted a different color than the wall below.
The trim style is simplistic, minimal and delicate. Bulking up the corners with superfluous trim elements will take away from this simplistic approach. End the paint and the chair rail at the corners. Smooth out the chair rail by using a 45º return instead of 90º.
If you still feel there must be something at the corners, use a tiny strip smaller than 1½".
Thanks for the reply-
The subrail is a smaller piece of ogee or whatever moulding about 3 inches below the chairrail. The rest you have right, with the picture frames below the chair and subrail.
I'm guessing I'll add in a plinth block at the bottom to return the chair rail into. . .but the subrail might look funny.