With the housing industry tightening up and the phone ringing less frequently, remodelers need to learn new business and marketing techniques so that they can develop more work from the customers they do have. Yes, that’s right, there’s more to the building business than driving nails. Knowledge and enthusiasm for the craft will encourage your customers to upgrade their remodeling projects. On a typical remodel, moldings are rarely given the attention they deserve, but adding crown molding, wainscoting and coffered ceilings, changing out baseboard, casing and chair rail, will not only boost the scale of a small project, but if done with careful design and quality materials, upgrading moldings can lead to a nice profit center and a specialty career.

What makes a Good-Looking Molding

This 18th century mantelpiece (left), in a historic home outside Philadelphia, is a perfect example of well-crafted moldings, and well-conceived composition, from the architrave molding to the crown molding. The moldings are deeply incised, but the real drama and impact are produced by crisp details and sharp edges.

I’ve watched a lot of customers choose moldings for their homes. Most often they’re attracted to the largest pieces or the most ornate, whether it’s casing, baseboard or crown. The sad truth is that most of those gaudy profiles disappear once they’re on the wall; they turn into mush. That’s because a lot of moldings, especially big ones, don’t follow the basic rules of successful design.

Fine moldings are the result of fine details. Notice how the edges around the egg-and-dart molding in the Cliveden mantelpiece are all sharp, the carving deep, so that the shadows around each detail are well defined — thin dark lines of shadow. The same is true in the simple crown molding on the mantel shelf, and the chair rail that terminates against the architrave just beneath the crossette corner.

Studying Moldings

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we can learn the most about moldings by studying historic homes. Books are useful, too, but for real information on molding design, you have to look for a book that precedes any influence by the International Style. In The Theory of Moldings (1926), C. Howard Walker (reprint available from www.amazon.com) offers an excellent explanation of molding design and use. Walker writes at the very outset of his book: