Creating a "Crown Molding" Effect and Paint Color

I have always loved crown moldings in homes because it gives a house character...and it looks really good, too! Of course, when we bought our house last year, none of the rooms in our home had crown molding and they still don't. It isn't that expensive to put up, but I have heard it can be a little bit of a pain if you've never put up crown molding before so I think we will wait a few years or so before we decide to do a big project like that. Until then, I did some research on the web about how one could create the crown molding effect in their home without actually putting up real "crown molding." Does that make sense?  :)  I hope so...and here is the answer to that question.

What to do? Well, create crown molding with white paint, of course!! I saw this on a few blogs last year and wanted to do the same thing to our kitchen and dining room since both rooms are connected to each other with one wall. I also decided this would be a good idea to do because it was so hard for me to not accidentally paint the ceiling since the walls that connect to the ceiling have a little curve to them.

A few months after we moved into our home, I decided to paint the walls of our kitchen and dining room a color called Latte from Sherwin Williams. It was kind of a pain to choose the right wall color and I wanted to make sure to get it right. After a few sample colors, I decided on Latte. It looks quite nice in both rooms because of the color of our carpet, which is beige, and the color of our cabinets, which are cherry. You have to be careful when picking the right color for your walls because what looks good in someone else's home (or online) might not look the same in your home depending on how much natural light you get in each room. There are many other factors that can contribute to picking the wrong paint color, like making sure it will look good with the kitchen cabinets, countertops, carpet or wood, etc. Therefore, bringing home paint samples and testing them on your walls is a good place to start.


After choosing our paint color, this is how the rooms turned out.


Here are two pictures of our dining room below with Latte on the walls:

Sorry about the mess on the table, but this is what it looks like at any given time during the day. :)

Here is a picture of Latte on our walls in the kitchen:

As you can see, the dining room is not as dark as the kitchen because of the amount of natural light we get in our dining room. However, we do like this color on our walls because it makes the rooms feel cozy and warm which is what we wanted.

Now, if you look at all 3 pictures, it might look like there is crown molding on our walls near the ceiling (at least I hope it looks like that!).   :0

So, to do this, what I did was paint all of the walls with Sherwin Williams, Latte, and let the paint dry. Next, I used a leveler to help me tape off where I wanted my "crown molding" to go. I used  Sherwin Williams, Bone, to paint above the tape. Bone is also the same color on our ceilings and so if I got a little paint on the ceiling, it was no biggie! YAY!!

I really wish I took pictures of the whole process because it would paint a better picture (no pun intended) of how to create the look of crown molding in your home, but again, this was way before I thought about starting my own blog. Sorry!

Here are a few more pictures of the crown molding effect on our walls.

I think it looks pretty good and does the job we wanted it too for less than what it would cost if we bought the molding ourselves and put it up in both rooms.

I have also done the same thing in our loft and the guest room, but I will save those posts and pictures for another day.  :)

 

Thanks for stopping by!