Victorian-era rooms depend on properly sized cornices (ceiling molding) and baseboards for their pleasing proportions. If your Victorian house has lost its molding to renovation, or if you're trying to create a Victorian look in a newer house, cornices and baseboards are a must.
Modern baseboards are virtually always too short for Victorian proportions. To estimate the correct height for your baseboards, measure the room's ceiling height. Your baseboard height, in inches, should be about two-thirds of your ceiling height, in feet. So a 9-foot ceiling calls for 6-inch baseboards. The cornice height is between one-half and two-thirds of the baseboard height, giving a cornice of 3 to 4 inches for a 9-foot ceiling. You can certainly round up or down a little so that you can use standard molding strips.
The Serious Restorer's Approaches
Victorian houses of the middle and upper classes had "run in place" plaster cornices. Walls, ceiling, and cornice molding were all plaster, with the molding created by running a template along the wet plaster (which was usually built up over a rough form to give support). This method created cornices with wonderful detail and dimension, but it is difficult and expensive to reproduce today, as it requires an expert plasterer.
A somewhat less expensive alternative, ideal for houses where plaster ceilings have been replaced with sheetrock, is polystyrene moldings. These light-weight moldings come in elaborate designs, can be painted, and are fairly easy to install. Among other advantages, they come with corner blocks so that you don't have to tackle mitering the pieces where they join at the corners.
Easy and Affordable Alternatives
Wood moldings, while less elaborate than polystyrene ones, are also less expensive as long as you're buying paint-grade wood. You can't simply walk into your local lumber store and buy wood moldings with sufficient width and elaborateness, but you can simulate elaborate molding by combining several plainer designs. You can even leave "blank" wall or ceiling between rows of molding, giving the visual effect of a wider molding. This technique is especially effective if you use the authentic Victorian technique of painting the molding in several muted coordinating colors (look at the colors in your rug or upholstery for inspiration), so that each row or surface is visually distinct. Treat the "blank" ceiling or wall strips in "molding" colors, and they'll appear to be molding surfaces.
Another classic technique for simulating cornice molding, or for adding height to a short molding, is to place a wallpaper border below it. If the colors of the border are drawn from the existing molding or from the ceiling, rather than from the walls or wallpaper, it will visually be part of the cornice. Similarly, a well-chosen border can be used to add visual height to too-short baseboards if there's some reason to avoid replacing baseboards.
Modern baseboards are virtually always too short for Victorian proportions. To estimate the correct height for your baseboards, measure the room's ceiling height. Your baseboard height, in inches, should be about two-thirds of your ceiling height, in feet. So a 9-foot ceiling calls for 6-inch baseboards. The cornice height is between one-half and two-thirds of the baseboard height, giving a cornice of 3 to 4 inches for a 9-foot ceiling. You can certainly round up or down a little so that you can use standard molding strips.
The Serious Restorer's Approaches
Victorian houses of the middle and upper classes had "run in place" plaster cornices. Walls, ceiling, and cornice molding were all plaster, with the molding created by running a template along the wet plaster (which was usually built up over a rough form to give support). This method created cornices with wonderful detail and dimension, but it is difficult and expensive to reproduce today, as it requires an expert plasterer.
A somewhat less expensive alternative, ideal for houses where plaster ceilings have been replaced with sheetrock, is polystyrene moldings. These light-weight moldings come in elaborate designs, can be painted, and are fairly easy to install. Among other advantages, they come with corner blocks so that you don't have to tackle mitering the pieces where they join at the corners.
Easy and Affordable Alternatives
Wood moldings, while less elaborate than polystyrene ones, are also less expensive as long as you're buying paint-grade wood. You can't simply walk into your local lumber store and buy wood moldings with sufficient width and elaborateness, but you can simulate elaborate molding by combining several plainer designs. You can even leave "blank" wall or ceiling between rows of molding, giving the visual effect of a wider molding. This technique is especially effective if you use the authentic Victorian technique of painting the molding in several muted coordinating colors (look at the colors in your rug or upholstery for inspiration), so that each row or surface is visually distinct. Treat the "blank" ceiling or wall strips in "molding" colors, and they'll appear to be molding surfaces.
Another classic technique for simulating cornice molding, or for adding height to a short molding, is to place a wallpaper border below it. If the colors of the border are drawn from the existing molding or from the ceiling, rather than from the walls or wallpaper, it will visually be part of the cornice. Similarly, a well-chosen border can be used to add visual height to too-short baseboards if there's some reason to avoid replacing baseboards.
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