crown mouldings color help please

[Ninip]

Merry Xmas everyone! For a gift my sons have offered to put up crown mouldings in our main living areas. We have red brown alder laminate floors, my walls are painted a taupey/tan/beigey color. My baseboards and trim is painted white. My question is the crown mouldings can they be stained to match floors instead of painted white like baseboards? My sons seem to think the darker color will look better. My ceiling is white popcorn. Older style house. Is the brown mouldings going to look dumb? Should they be white? Please give me advice, I am not very creative. Thanks in advance.

[Matt]

Why not stain a small section, and tack it up to help you visualize what it would look like?

[no1herenow]

IMHO (I only have a sample size of two, but did thousands of feet in each):

1). stained to match floor: will make a much bolder statement than (2), higher ceilings (i.e 9+ feet) will help reduce effect, too wide a molding will overpower the room. For example. on an 8-foot ceiling I used only 1.5" wide stained molding. (Personally, I think molding that doesn't match the rest of the trim (i.e. both painted, or both stained) looks funny, irrespective of the floor covering)

2). painted to match trim: (especially if white) will tend to give the molding an understated elegance. Can also go larger in size on the molding without overpowering (I did 5" on a 9' ceiling).

I vote for #2; if your walls were stained wood, I would do #1 ;-)

Matt wrote: