french room

Photo courtesy of Greg Roth.

[This is part of my How to Install Moldings series.}

These ornate wall panels and ornaments were taken from a château near Amiens, France, and then somehow found their way to the Detroit Institute of Arts and reassembled.

I’m posting this beautiful room for two reasons:

  1. I love blue and white rooms.
  2. Because the ornaments over the doors are made from paper mache!

What Are Your Moldings Made Of?

Moldings can be made from any material that works for you: wood, stone, foam, plastic, compo, plaster or even paper mache.

I bring this to your attention because I know a lot of you reading my posts are woodworkers. Or, if not woodworkers, then at least you spend time on woodworking sites to learn some of the finer points of installing moldings.

And most of those sites have a prejudice against using any material other than wood (I actually read this on a woodworking forum, “I’m a woodworker, not an mdf-worker!”)

And that’s fine, they are woodworkers. That’s their medium.

Our Medium

But our medium is whatever fits our budget, is good-quality and has high-resolution detail.

I am mostly concerned with showing you how to decorate your home with moldings in the most affordable way possible, and yet be based on a reasonable amount of historic accuracy. So whatever gets that job done correctly is the material I’ll use.

So go ahead, give yourself permission to work in whatever material suits your needs!

Images courtesy of Greg Roth.

french room