What Width Crown Molding For 8 Foot Ceilings

This design shows crown molding on top of 36 tall uppers and a small space between the crown and ceiling.

What width crown molding for 8 foot ceilings. We have 9 ceilings on the first floor picture of bfast nook and 8 ceilings on the 2nd floor and used the same baseboard and crown. At the same time the addition of a chair rail lower down perhaps lower than you would normally have one say about 24 inches off the floor will draw the eye from the chair. Here is a working drawing of a kitchen with an 8 ft ceiling. Ceiling height is the ultimate arbiter of size according to architect richard sammons coauthor of get your house right.

You wouldn t use an 8 wide molding in a room with 8 tall ceilings for example. For an 8 foot ceiling height the recommended crown size is 2 1 2 to 6 tall with no picture mold. I had a client this past summer and the husband really wasn t sure about installing crown molding. This isn t a hard and fast rule and it doesn t work for lower ceilings.

For homes with 12 foot ceilings and higher molding should be at least 7 inches wide. After he saw how it lifted his 8 ft ceilings he was convinced. Here s a picture of the hallway with 8 ceilings. The square footage and level of formality of the room can help determine what crown size in that range is appropriate.

Taller walls up to 10 feet require larger moldings to maintain. That is there should be less horizontal coverage on the ceiling and more on the wall leading the eye upward. Standard 8 foot ceilings can accommodate molding that is between 2 5 inches and 6 inches wide. Use your room height measurement to help determine the width of the crown molding.

A standard 8 foot wall would be overpowered by large ornate crown. Higher 10 foot ceilings should not have any molding smaller than 5 5 inches wide. For ceilings 10 feet tall or higher consider a rule of thumb allowing 1 of width for each foot of ceiling height. For 9 foot ceilings 3 to 7 inches and for 10 foot ceilings 3 to 8 inches.

The crown molding should be more vertically oriented. The baseboards are 7 1 4 and the crown moulding is 6 5 16. Moldings at this height typically range between 3 and 5 inches. In addition it s a good idea to choose crown molding based on ceiling height.

Here is the same kitchen with a riser molding added below the crown molding which takes the cabinets all the way to the ceiling. For an eight foot ceiling i usually would specify a molding between 3 inches and 5 1 4 inches wide works best. Essentially higher ceilings can accommodate wider moldings because the volume of the space increases and the additional height means that moldings. The riser molding is outlined in red.

Sometimes we don t know something is wrong untill we see it done right.