I am replacing the corner boards, trim boards and crown molding on y 200+ year old house and could use some helpful advice.
The pictures attached will I hope, help with my questions.
The first question I have regards nailing the crown in to place. I plan on nailing it at the bottom where is sits against he trim board, however, I am not sure how to handle the top. When I position the crown, the sop sits against the inner aspect of the roof’s drip edge. Should I try to build up the boards behind the crown and nail it in to those? (I hope this makes sense)
The second question involves what I refer to as the return board (the piece of trim that forms a ninety degree angle with the trim on the face of the house). I plan on extending this 12 inches along the side of the house and will continue the crown in the same fashion. Do you extend the crown just beyond the end of this trim board and cap it off by making a miter cut at the end or do you top the crown short of the trim board. Once again I hope these questions make some sense and please excuse my ignorance in advance.
The white trim boards in the picture are mock-ups so I could get some sense of how things will go together.
Thanks in advance. Sorry about the file size. Please feel free to resize as needed.
Kieran
Replies
It's usually helpful to install blocking behind the crown so you have something solid to nail to. Having blocking also allows you to nail through the face of the crown. You'll have to rip the blocking at the proper angle that matches the back of your crown. I usually cut it a little shy of the actual space you need to fill. For your cornice return, it's typically done with the crown flat against the sheathing with a mitered return on the end. Siding is then scribed to that. If you have a trim board under it, I'd stop the mitered end just shy of the end of the board. Either way, you miter and close the ends. Put flashing on the top of the return or it''ll be rotted away in a few years. The return you are doing is supposed to mimic the top of a greek column.
Be careful around that service drop. Hope you're using a fiberglass ladder.
Good luck
See if this link helps you.
http://books.google.com/books?id=KKeipCXitkMC&pg=PA273&lpg=PA273&dq=%22greek+return%22+detail&source=web&ots=4gLbkMvwGs&sig=msCNkqb-Kj-EDVezA3X1uKIHSSg
Isn't exterior crown called bedmoulding? Not trying to be a jerk,, just trying to keep up on my terminology!
Isn't exterior crown called bedmoulding
Technically, crowns and bedmolds simply have different geometries. A crown has a large ogee over a small cove. A bedmold is a convex curve over a smaller cove.
Edit: some of my old catalogs seem to treat bed molds as a subset of crowns. However, there is some inconsistency, so I don't know quite what to say for sure.
I think crown usually has a spring angle of 38° while bed molding is usually 45°. I emphsize "usually" because it's the only thing I've seen, but I haven't done a lot of bed molding so I'm sure there are exceptions.
I've always seen/heard/called crown and bed moulding just as you pictured it.
In older homes I've seen bed moulding both in and outside.
Doug
Edited 6/7/2007 6:51 am ET by DougU
In older homes I've seen bed moulding both in and outside.
Yeah, for whatever reason the bed mold seems to have been much more common as an exterior element than were traditional crown profiles.
I've used solid backing as mentioned or the easier method is to cut triangles of 2x stock and install them at 16" or so centers.
http://grantlogan.net/