LESLIE: Brian in Rhode Island is working on some crown molding. How can we help you?
BRIAN: I’m putting up some crown molding above cabinets. Now, I’ve worked with crown molding before. I have this ingenious jig that – I believe it’s called a Cut-N-Crown.
TOM: OK.
BRIAN: And when you put it together with your miter saw, it does a good job of the angles for inside and outside corners.
TOM: Mm-hmm. OK.
BRIAN: And what I can’t figure out is now I’m trying to do crown molding above some kitchen cabinets that I’ve installed, OK? And I’m not quite sure how to nail it on. I don’t want to nail into the stile above the door or the rail above the door because number one, I don’t want to do that. Number two, it looks like it could split it, so I’m just trying to figure out what people do to fasten crown molding above kitchen cabinets.
TOM: So, you have space above these cabinets – empty space, so to speak – between the cabinet and the ceiling?
BRIAN: Yes, I do.
TOM: OK. Well, I think you are going to have to mechanically attach it to those cabinets.
Now, whether you do that with nails or some other fastening system is going to be up to you. But is this a hardwood crown molding? Is this oak?
BRIAN: Yes, it is.
TOM: So you’re going to have to pilot drill – anything you do with this has to be pilot-drilled, because you can’t just nail through it; it’s going to split it. So you’re going to have to get a drill bit that’s just slightly smaller than the nail or the screw that you’re using and pilot-drill through this.
Now, I wouldn’t hesitate to attach it to the cabinet body above the door if I had the space. If you wanted to try to kind of hedge your bet a little bit, get a little bit more control, what you could do is you could attach a nailing strip or a screwing strip, so to speak, on top of that cabinet. So let’s say you have a piece of wood that maybe is 1×1 square. Well, you attach that to the top of the cabinet, you drill down so it attaches into the top stile of that cabinet and now you have a much bigger, flatter surface for you to kind of have some meat behind it, get that nail or screw into, you know what I mean?
BRIAN: OK. I know exactly what you mean. I know exactly what you mean. In fact, now that I see what you’re saying, I might want to improve that just a little more. I might want to take something that’s like a 2×3 or something along that line and cut it out so it fits above it but I can’t screw from above to attach it. So, if I’ve got the room, I might (inaudible at 0:22:30).
TOM: Why not? How much space is there?
BRIAN: There’s about 4 inches.
TOM: Oh, yeah, you can’t do that. No, you’d have to go – then you’d have to go from underneath. You could go from underneath. You could drill up from the underside of the cabinet stile – the front stile. You can go up that way and attach it there.
BRIAN: That sounds good. That would solve my problem.
TOM: Alright. There you go. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT and good luck with that kitchen.
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