Kitchen Crown Molding.

One day, I will sit and gather photos to do a comprehensive post describing the renovation of the kitchen in this old place of ours ... perhaps it will take a series of posts, because it has been a long process with lots of twists and turns along the way.  The design of the kitchen itself was fairly straight-forward.  Cabinet installation went well ... and this is where things stalled.  It has been six years since the first hammer was taken to the walls, and we are finally, FINALLY in the home stretch!

The big hold up in the process has been the installation of the crown molding on top of our cabinets.  It's a two-piece crown, solid cherry with a natural finish, like the cabinets themselves ... and it must be installed on the cabinets, not the ceiling, because the ceiling is 3/4" out of level across the length of the kitchen.  I have had three trim carpenters come look at the job, each of them tried to convince me that I should run the molding along the plane of the ceiling and that I'd never notice the unevenness on the cabinets themselves ... WRONG!  I want the molding to be parallel with the opening of the cabinet doors, no matter what happens at the ceiling line.  They didn't get it.  Bye bye.

Since 2005, this is what the top of our upper cabinets has looked like.  That 'trim' is a piece of 3/4" plywood, which is there to act as a backing for future crown molding.

In early December, while we were mingling with guests at the Christmas party at Hartwood Winery, we made a connection with Jim, a fellow guest and a cabinet maker who appeared to have the skills necessary to maybe, hopefully help me get this kitchen finished.  I asked questions, he gave great answers ... we see eye-to-eye on the project ... and yesterday he arrived here to get to work.

The first piece of the two-piece crown is up!  The lighter wood is a wedge of poplar which will support the second piece of the crown.

I am totally thrilled with the results so far!!  Jim is meticulous and his joints and corners are PERFECT ... which is what I demanded on this project.  Natural cherry molding means there's no room for error, and he is definitely up for the job.

Our one unforeseen challenge while Jim was working yesterday was our dog Daniel's reaction ... Daniel is deathly terrified of loud sharp noises (nail guns and hammers), and he spent the afternoon panting and drooling and whining on his bed in the office ... which was the farthest he could get from the kitchen.  While Jim is working here later today, Daniel is going to spend the day at our friends Andy and Kim's house hanging out with TJ.

Alice says, "Look, Daniel, nail guns aren't scary.  I'm sharpening my face on this one."

(I have to go now, to get Daniel out of here before Jim arrives.)