Spent a whole day trying to get a tricky crown molding return to look right

Had a job in a fancy old house in the historic district, and the client wanted a specific crown profile to match the original trim. The inside corner was fine, but the outside return on a sloped ceiling was a nightmare. I must have cut that little piece six times, thinking my angle was off by a degree or two each try. The problem was the ceiling wasn't level, so my miter saw setting from the wall didn't work for the return. After like 4 hours of fussing, I finally just made a cardboard template of the exact gap. Took that back to the shop, traced it onto the molding, and cut it by hand with a coping saw. What should have been a 20-minute trim job ate up my whole Friday. Anyone got a better method for dealing with wonky ceilings on crown returns?

3 comments

3 Comments

murphy.mason12d ago

That part about the cardboard template is so real. I feel like so much of adult life is just making little cardboard templates for problems that should be simple. Like trying to fit a new piece of furniture in a weird corner, or getting the right amount of groceries for the week. The plan never fits the actual, slightly-off reality. You just have to trace the weird shape of the problem and cut around it.

pat_jenkins11d ago

My friend tried to follow one of those perfect meal kit plans for a month. She had all the right ingredients measured out, but her stove runs hot and her pans are old. Every single time, dinner was done way faster or slower than the recipe said. She finally just started ignoring the timer and checking the food itself. It was messy, but she stopped burning things. I mean the plan wasn't wrong, her kitchen was just its own thing.

hannah40012d ago

I get what you mean about the cardboard template, but I don't see it as a sign of things being off. For me, that's the real skill of the job. The plan is just a guess. Making that template wasn't a workaround, it was the actual solution. It means you stopped forcing a simple answer onto a complex problem and started working with the real house. That's not life being messy, that's you being good at your work.