Cabinet crown mouldings are the finishing touch for a kitchen renovation but you need to plan for them early in the project. Once the cabinets are bought (or built) and installed your options are limited to the situation you have in front of you.
Using cabinets of varying heights or "landscaping" as we call it, is a common way to add visual interest to a kitchen. This requires a bit more up-front planning and thought in order to be successful – especially when it comes down to the crown mouldings.
Return or die
As I wrote in my previous article "Cabinet Crown Moulding Tips", crown mouldings need to end in one of two ways:
- return to a wall or cabinet face (usually) at a 90 degree angle
- butt or "die" into the side an adjacent cabinet at 90 degrees
I’ve seen examples where people have tried other workarounds and “fixes" – and that’s exactly what they look like.
Three typical crown moulding examples
I’m going to show three examples of ways to deal with crown moulding at different heights. There are of course, more variations, but these three examples cover the basic design aspects that you need to consider during the planning stages.
Example # 1
This scenario includes both ways to end a lower level crown on adjacent cabinets. The left end of the lower crown dies into the side of a fascia and the right end returns to the face of a recessed light valance above the sink.
The key is that the taller cabinets MUST be deeper than the lower cabinets if you want the crown to die cleanly into the side. A typical 3" high crown will likely have a projection of less than that, but a good rule of thumb is that the taller cabinets should be at least 3" deeper than the lower level cabinets. [Read more…]
