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Visit the Crown Molding department. CROWN MOLDING INSTALLATION ON A VAULTED OR CATHEDRAL CEILING |  Installing crown molding on a vaulted ceiling or cathedral ceiling can be an overwhelming task. This tutorial will teach you how each piece needs to be cut to correctly install the crown molding. The illustration shows the room that we will be working with for our cuts. There are 4 pieces that will be needed for this area with a total of 6 mitered cuts. Each mitered cut is described in detail below, but before you start you need to measure the wall to find the angle of slope on your vaulted ceiling. MEASURING THE SLOPE OF A VAULTED CEILING If you have a miter divider you can quickly find the angle by holding the miter divider up at the point of slope on your vaulted ceiling.. Otherwise, measure the vertical distance from the tallest part down to the lowest part of the ceiling. Then, measure the horizontal distance along the wall from the point the slope starts to where it ends (make sure you are measuring horizontal to the ground, not at an angle). In this illustration the vaulted ceiling sloped from 8' high to 10' high (a vertical change of 24") and the horizontal distance of the slope was 34.25". To find the degree of slope first take the vertical distance and divide it by the horizontal distance. In our case, 24"/34.25" equals 0.70. Then take the inverse tangent of that number ... for those of us without a PHD in mathematics you can use handy tools available online. We plugged our 0.70 value into this Inverse Tangent Calculator (found at the bottom of the page that opens in a new window) and determined that our angle was 35 degrees. Now that we know the slope of our vaulted ceiling we can proceed with making the miter cuts on the crown molding.
| CROWN MOLDING MITER CUTS  Cut #1:
Our first miter cut is going to be on the crown molding that will come along the tallest part of the ceiling and then run into the molding that goes down the slope of the vaulted ceiling. So in the illustration we will be mitering the right side of the crown molding. Since our angle of slope was 35 degrees we need to set our miter saw to half of that angle, or 17.5 degrees. If you have a compound miter saw you will want to keep the bevel angle at zero for this whole installation. We set the miter angle to the left side 17.5 degree mark and then held the crown molding such that the lip that would touch the wall was sitting flat on the compound miter saw and the lip that touches the ceiling was pointed away from the fence (towards the person making the cut). The long part of the crown molding should extend out to the right side of the miter saw as shown in theillustration to the left.
| |  Cut #2:
For the second step we will create the piece that will meet up with Cut #1. We set our miter saw to the right side 17.5 degree mark (half of our 35 degree slope). Once again, we held the crown molding such that the lip that would touch the wall was sitting flat on the compound miter saw and the lip that touches the ceiling was pointed away from the fence (towards the person making the cut). The long part of the crown molding should extend out to the left side of the miter saw as shown in the illustration to the right.
 Cut #3:
Our third miter cut was done on the same crown molding piece as Cut #2. For this piece we kept the saw at the right side 17.5 degree mark. Once again, we held the crown molding such that the lip that would touch the wall was sitting flat on the compound miter saw and the lip that touches the ceiling was pointed away from the fence. For this cut the part of the crown molding where Cut #2 was made extended to the left of the miter saw as shown in the illustration to the left.
 Cut #4:
We are now going to make cuts to create a transition piece that allow us to change our elevation back to the horizontal part of the ceiling. For Cut #4 we set our miter saw to the left side 17.5 degree mark. Once again, we held the crown molding such that the lip that would touch the wall was sitting flat on the compound miter saw and the lip that touches the ceiling was pointed away from the fence. The long part of the crown molding should extend to the left side of the miter saw as shown in theillustration to the right.
 Cut #5:
Taking the piece we just made for Cut#4 we are now ready to make the cut that will allow us to turn the corner. Since our corner is 90 degrees we set our miter saw to the right side 45 degree mark. This piece is going to be a small transition piece that will fit in the corner, so we want to make the cut such that the final piece is a triangular wedge so we moved the piece to where it will come to a point at the top of the crown molding. This time we held the crown molding differently than on the miter cuts we had made to change elevation. We held the molding such that the lip that would touch the ceiling was sitting flat on the compound miter saw and the lip that touches the wall was pointed away from the fence. For this cut the part of the crown molding where Cut #4 was made extended to the left of the miter saw as shown in the illustration to the left.
 Cut #6:
Now that we have completed the transition piece, we are back to a typical installation and we just need to make the miter cut for the piece that will run along the horizontal portion of the wall and will meet with the miter on Cut #5. We set our miter saw to the left side 45 degree mark and held the crown molding such that the lip that would touch the ceiling was sitting flat on the compound miter saw and the lip that touches the wall was pointed away from the fence. The long portion of the crown molding should extend out to the right of the miter saw as shown in the illustration to the right. IMPORTANT REMINDERS 1. Any time you are making a miter cut for a change in elevation on a cathedral or vaulted ceiling you will need to set the miter angle to 1/2 of the slope of your ceiling. In our illustration we always set it to 17.5 degrees because our slope was 35 degrees.
2. Anytime your ceiling slopes down and runs into a wall you are going to need a small, pie-shaped, transition piece (Cut#4 and Cut#5 in our illustration).
3. This tutorial has been written in a way that does not require the use of a compound miter saw, so if following these steps keep your bevel angle set to zero.
4. Be patient and don't worry about it being perfect -- caulking is perfect for hiding small gaps, holes, and little mistakes!
Outside Corners on a Vaulted Ceiling There are three ways to handle the outside corners on a vaulted ceiling. For directions on how to install around an outside corner we recommend Wayne Drake's Crown Molding and Trim: Install it Like a Pro. That book also covers a variety of other installation techniques |
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Visit the Crown Molding department. | | | | | | | | | How to Install Crown Molding on a Sloped Ceiling
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