 |
In years past, when you walked into a well-built home you would be escorted
into a parlor with the appropriate furnishings, perhaps a fireplace with
a marble mantle and a high ceiling bordered with crown molding. This
decorative touch took many forms: crown molding ran the length of the
seam between ceiling and wall and provided decoration like a textured
wrapping. This fanciful framing was also used to provide chair railings
along the wall, wrapping the walls from corner to corner at the height
of a typical chair back.
Crown molding typically has a repetitive decorative pattern along
its length. Sometimes it can be a flowered, filigree design and sometimes
a geometric repetition of crosshatched lines or symbols. It can extend
well down the wall or out from the ceiling’s edge with parallel
rows of decorative patterns or extended edges.
Chair railings are usually strips a few inches in width that wrap
around the room raised slightly off the wall’s surface. The decorative
touches on these crown moldings are less physically obtrusive, as the
surface of the railing should remain relatively flat. Crown moldings
used along walls will often have extruding edges that then recess slightly
towards the middle of the strip where the decorative frills are found,
protected from chipping by the raised edges.
The fancier crown moldings often have end pieces that are architectural
decorations themselves, not only joining the lengths of crown molding
but providing decorative highlights in the ceiling’s corners.
The room’s ceiling becomes a framed piece of architectural design,
the crown molding drawing the eye and thus becoming an element of the
interior design.
|
