Ornate Decorative Moldings

In vintage homes, carved and cast decoration was a display of wealth. In today's elegant homes, similar motifs belong to those who simply know where to find them.

The reward of the search can be as simple and inexpensive as a good molded reproduction. Or it can be a treasury of old molding stock discovered in a yard of architectural salvage. In the room pictured here, the keystone-shaped pieces at the midpoints of the friezes above the door and wall niche evoke the central locking stone of an archway. A similar piece could help conceal minor pattern or grain mismatches in applications where a single piece of molding is not long enough.