How to decide to paint crown molding before installing it

Sometimes priming and painting trim work before installing it can help save a few steps. However, there’s still some painting that needs to be done after installation. Here’s how to decide whether or not to paint crown molding before installing it.

Question:

I’m going to install crown molding in my living room. I’ve heard and seen on TV that it saves time to paint it before installing. Is this true? Thank you for your help. —Peg 

Answer:

Hi Peg,

I LOVE to install crown molding. Call me crown carzy. But pre-painting it…nost so much. Here’s why: Pre-painting crown will probably cost you time (and maybe heartache) mainly because you have to handle the material as you install it. Then you have to nail, shim, fill, sand, caulk.

So if you pre-paint before you install crown molding, some of it will have two coats, some just one. Trust me. It’ll show.

And, there’s no way you can really avoid getting caulk on the ceiling so you’ll be painting anyway. In the end, painting after you install crown molding—and most other moldings—will make you and your molding the happiest.

When does it make sense to prepaint?

There is one place that pre-painting does make sense, however, and that’s shoe molding. We typically use a ¾ x ¾-inch cove mold for our shoe. And we apply the first coat before installing it. And to help speed things up, we use spray paint.

Painting a wobbly little tiny hunk of wood spanned between sawhorses is no fun—OK, it’s impossible—with a brush.

Next, we install the shoe and fill the nail holes and apply a top-coat of paint with a brush. If it doesn’t get cut in super tight to the floor, it’s OK. The reason pre-painting works here is that we can use brad nails (smaller than regular nails) and the molding is significantly smaller and vastly more out of view.

Also, trying to paint shoe molding along a carpet or wood floor requires a sniper-steady hand and you have to be so contorted to paint along the floor it’s almost not worth the trouble.

So, short story long, painting crown molding in place is faster and easier in the long haul.

Mark

A licensed contractor, tool expert, wood and outdoor enthusiast, and elite Spartan Race competitor, he writes about home improvement and tools for national magazines and websites, and teaches hands-on clinics for other remodeling professionals. Check out his book, The Carpenter's Notebook.

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