How to Pair Baseboards and Crown Mouldings for a Cohesive Look

In order to make a room feel cohesive, it’s important to align certain design elements within the interior design. When small details are left out, it can throw off the entire flow of the room and affect its aesthetic value.

Two important details to pay close attention to when designing any room are the crown mouldings and the baseboards. Let’s take a closer look at what these features are and how you can design them in tandem to make your room feel inviting, well-designed, and luxurious.

Crown Mouldings vs. Baseboards

Just like the name suggests, crown moulding is used where the tops of the walls meet the ceiling to break up the texture of the wall and create an elegant aesthetic touch. Conversely, baseboards are a different type of moulding located where the bottoms of the walls meet the floor. Baseboards help to protect the wall from any dirt buildup on the floor and aesthetically smooth the transition from floor to wall.

Both crown mouldings and baseboards can come in a variety of styles, colors, and sizes depending on the specifications of your interior design. These features are secured to the walls using long-lasting adhesive, and you can choose from a variety of existing styles or even custom design your own.

How to Match Your Crown Mouldings and Baseboards

Is it important for crown mouldings and baseboards to match? Though these features are usually made from similar materials, they are designed slightly differently, as they perform different functions for the space.

Your baseboards and crown mouldings may not match each other exactly in all aspects. However, there should be a sense of continuation between the two that you can clearly see as you enter the room. Here are a few helpful tips when it comes to pairing your crown mouldings and baseboards in a way that keeps the interior design of the room consistent.

Choose a Style

As you’re designing your home, the overarching style will be one of your primary focuses. The style can affect big-picture things like the architecture design and floor plan, but it can also play a role in choosing small details like mouldings.

Your crown mouldings and baseboards can be variations of one another, but the style should still be cohesive. For example, mixing a rounded crown moulding with an extremely flat, modern baseboard may make one or the other look and feel out of place. Determine the types of shapes you want to be consistent through all of your moulding and stick to that, even if the exact designs vary slightly.

Pair the Color

Color can play a huge role in making design elements feel consistent and continuous. What if you’re not installing new moulding from scratch? You may choose to work with your existing moulding to make it feel more aesthetically aligned. In this case, it’s best to focus on what you can control: the paint.

Even if your crown mouldings and baseboards vary slightly in style, a fresh coat of matching paint will help to make them feel consistent with one another. Additionally, the color you choose for your mouldings and trim can act as a pop of color within the room, contrasting with the crisp white walls and creating a sense of visual intrigue.

Keep a Consistent Size

If your crown mouldings are much wider and longer than your baseboards or vice versa, it may throw off the proportions of the room. Even if the two mouldings match each other but are the wrong size for the room, it will still feel unbalanced.

Make sure that all of your mouldings are similar in size to one another to create a feeling of symmetry in the space. You may not notice if the difference is within an inch or two, but any more than that might stick out to you as odd.

Can Crown Mouldings and Baseboards Be Cohesive Without Matching?

Will your room look mismatched if your crown mouldings and baseboards don’t match perfectly? No! To make the room feel cohesive throughout, there should be a clear sense of connection between the two moulding types.

This type of connection can be achieved through style, color, and size, but it is not necessary to have all three. Remember that any interior design rule can be broken as long as you have a distinct and clear vision.

Other Ways to Pull Your Interior Design Together

Your crown mouldings and baseboards play an important role in the cohesion of your room, but there’s more to your interior design than just these two. Here are a few other factors to consider when brainstorming your room layout.

Don’t Forget the Casings

Casings, also called door or window mouldings, are the decorative trim surrounding your doors and windows. Once you determine the style and color of your baseboards and crown mouldings, take these details into account as you design your casings so that the entire room can maintain a consistent aesthetic layout.

You could make your casings match your other mouldings to create a clear design flow, or you could deliberately make them stand out to catch the eye. Additionally, a more intricate — as opposed to sleek — casing will affect the overall vibe of the room, too. It all depends on your preferences and how you want to feel when you enter the room.

Add Backband Trim

Homeowners will often add backband trim to their door or window casing to increase the presence of framing. By incorporating this design element in both features, you can help to continue the cohesive layout and create even more visual intrigue throughout the room.

Shop Mouldings and More at Mouldings One

Ready to learn more about how your mouldings can transform your space? At Mouldings One, we’re proud to offer high-quality mouldings in a variety of options. We encourage homeowners to be creative with their interior designs and build the home of their dreams. Contact us today to ask questions or start your order.