Home renovations can be tedious, time consuming and expensive. By the time you purchase all the necessary tools, and materials to complete your job the mountain of work ahead can be quite daunting. If you have worked hard on fixing up your home then having it look as professional as possible is a must, and the finishing touches are as important as every other part of the project. When selecting materials to finish a room it is important to choose products that are easy to use (if you are a first time/amateur renovator), that look nice and really showcase all the trouble you went to. Mouldings are one such detail that can make or break a project you have undertaken, and two choices available are easy crown mouldings, and plastic injection mouldings.
Easy Crown Mouldings: simple to use, but do they look professional?
So you have done the drywall, plastered, painted and are ready for the finishing accents to really bring the project to a close. Easy crown mouldings; the name suggests the level of usability required to install. With Easy crown mouldings there is no need for mitre saws or finishing nails to properly measure and affix your crown mouldings to the upper portion of your wall. To properly trim this specific type of moulding you simply require the knowledge of: how to use a pair of scissors. This removes the hassle of complicated angle measurements to properly line up corners. Sounds simple enough; however, how do they measure up to the old fashioned way of using tools and angle measurements?
According to some renovation experts; though, they are easy to use they leave you in the lurch quality wise. Because the trimming is done with scissors accuracy on trimming is always an issue, and rarely do seams meet properly (it is said that seams in easy crown mouldings can be taped over though). Is this how you want to finish a project that you have sweated hours over? With Easy Crown Mouldings there are also issues of installation on the wall. Yes they are easy to use for all levels of expertise. To stick these mouldings to the wall, you must simply remove the layer of tape on the back (revealing a layer of tacky adhesive) and firmly press into place in the desired location. How reliable is the adhesive? Well on the aforementioned website where tests have been performed… after very little time the glue gave out and the Easy Crown Mouldings fell down to the floor which brings up 2 new problems: how do you firmly re-attach them to the wall? And how to repair the tears in the paint left behind after the adhesive has torn it off the wall.
Obviously like other products you get what you pay for, and cheap and fast generally results in hassles, and more work. There are others that state that these so called “Easy Crown Mouldings" are not as easy to install as the name states.
Plastic injection mouldings: more complicated, and more expensive
Plastic injection mouldings are probably the exact opposite of the Easy Crown Moulding. The creation of Plastic injection mouldings is not one for an amateur home renovator unless they specifically want to learn how to make them as the process is time consuming and tedious. Simple table top machines and moulds can be made to form your mouldings; however, the necessary tools list is far more expensive than that of ordinary wooden mouldings. Welders and drill presses are two of the said required machines to create your own, not to mention the plastic pellets which must be purchased to melt and form your mouldings.
For those who aren’t interested in learning the process behind making your own plastic injection mouldings, using this type of finishing product is not realistic as tracking them down through your local home renovations store will be quite complicated. If you are dead set on using them tracking them down can be daunting.
Written by John Mann
John Mann is an experienced home renovator and webmaster. Visit his website Workbench Ideas for workshop tips.
