Question about crown molding joints in older houses

I keep seeing guys try to force a perfect 45 degree cut on crown in old homes where the walls are never square (like this 1920s place I'm working on in Cincinnati). They end up with gaps you could drive a truck through because they're not checking the actual corner angle first. How do you handle a corner that's clearly 88 or 92 degrees without making it look like a hack job?

3 comments

3 Comments

stella1112d ago

My uncle used to just cope those joints with a coping saw for weird angles. It always looked way cleaner than trying to force a miter. Maybe it's just me but that old school way seems to hide a lot of sins.

david_palmer2d ago

Yeah, the part about it hiding sins is so true. A perfect miter needs a perfect corner, and we all know how often that happens in an old house. Coping follows the actual wall, so the gap gets tucked behind the profile of the trim piece. It's one of those skills that seems like a magic trick when you first see it done right.

skyler_kelly692d ago

Watched my buddy try to cope a baseboard last week after his miter saw cuts kept looking awful. He was totally stuck until I showed him Stella111's comment about her uncle, and he grabbed a coping saw from his dad's old toolbox. Took him a while to get the hang of back-cutting the profile, but once he did, that weird corner looked seamless.