# Help with crown moulding in tray ceiling



## JennyT (Feb 27, 2010)

Hello y'all! This is my first post, and I just stumbled upon this website after researching what to do with the crown moulding/tray ceiling/darker paint situation my husband and I have going on!

Let me first explain, then try to load some pictures...

Our house had a very light, neutral paint scheme goin' on already. In the living room we have tray ceiling and the vertical plane of the upper part matches the wall color, ceiling color of both levels is white. We have about a 6 inch crown moulding in the upper part, nothing on the lower. We started to paint, and realized we cannot paint a straight line to save our lives. We have textured walls, and paint tape, a 'paint guide' (like a putty knife kinda thing), and trying to cut in are not working and the dark color straight up against the white ceiling looks cheap and just plain bad. On one wall we have windows that come pretty close to the first level ceiling so moulding is prob not an option. In this case what could we do? Would qaurter round really look that bad in there? Also, if we did do something, would we have to continue to our breakfast nook and kitchen (shown in last pic)?

HELP!!! I AM TIRED OF A HALF PAINTED HOUSE!!

This is a wall with the new color (the dark color):










This is a close up of the 'tray ceiling' situation:










This is a close up after using the tool (rectangular slide thing supposed to "eliminate the need for tape!")









This is the window situation, can we have something here? There is only a 4-5 inch diff b/t ceiling and window: ***Hard to see b/c of shadow, but I measured (above the window to the ceiling is only 4 1/2 inches):









This is how the living continues to the breakfast and then around to the kitchen, if we did something, it would have to continue, right?









PLEASE HELP!!! If you click on a photo it should bring you to photo bucket and there are more pics there I think!!


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## Willie T (Jan 29, 2009)

When you have even one strong (heavy) texture, either wall or ceiling, it makes 'cutting' a straight line with your brush difficult. Strong textures on BOTH wall and ceiling exacerbate the situation.

It will cost a few hours, but the simplest way to fix this is to go around the ceiling/wall joint with a narrow, finger-smoothed bead of caulking. (Keep wetting your finger with water) This will give you a flat and smooth surface to cut along. Make your color differentiation right down the center of the caulk line. Forget the 'shield'. Those are a PITA. And tape is not much better.

*Click Here* to see a pretty good video on 'Cutting In'. Also, you might want to choose a good SASH brush (It's cut on an angle) for your cutting in. But it's not necessary. I usually use a regular 4" Purdy wall brush.

If you are right-handed, you will probably find it is much easier to cut-in_ from left to right_. And you slowly and smoothly _drag_... you don't 'dab'.

Beautiful house, by the way.


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## Jay123 (May 7, 2008)

I'd put crown up :whistling2:...but I'm a trim carpenter. 

Check the height (the drop from ceiling to wall) of a piece of your 6" crown (is it really 5 3/8" ?) on your ceiling/wall above the windows to see if you've got the room you need.

It would look better with crown throughout :whistling2: You could always drop down to the next size in crown moulding if you had to, but I think your existing crown would work.

J


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