Architectural Embellishments

Joseph Pubillones
Fri, 24 Apr 2026 21:00:00 -0700
Lifestyle

Any room is just but four walls with a ceiling and a floor. What makes a room remarkable are the details. Just about every room in the world can be awe-inspiring — it all depends on what treatments and embellishments the room has or could have. Every single plane of your room can be accented and "dressed" in architecture to make a statement. Millwork or plaster mouldings can be added to your room to make it shine. Of course, you should take into consideration the style of your house and add only what is natural to the architectural style.

Beginning with the ceiling, medallions or millwork can be features and focal points of your room. Medallions, for example, are meant to enhance lighting fixtures such as a chandelier or pendant. Medallions can be ornate or demure — as thin as a few inches to grand features that fan out and are festooned sometimes wider than two or three times the width of a chandelier. A room's ceiling can also be outlined following the shape of the room with moulding a foot or so off the top portion of any crown moulding. Of course, additional shapes such as curves and chamfers can be added in corners for a more decorative combination.

At the juncture of the wall and ceiling, crown moulding can be added. Even in the smallest room, this type of architectural enhancement is enough to give the room a feature for the eyes to rest upon. Crown mouldings can be as simple as a cove moulding to cover any imperfections where the wall and ceiling meet, to multi-part crown mouldings that conform to the scale of the space. A rule of thumb for sizing crown moulding is one-tenth the vertical dimension of the space. For example, in a conventional 8-foot floor-to-ceiling space, an 8-inch moulding is a good size.
Updated: Sat Apr 25, 2026

Any room is just but four walls with a ceiling and a floor. What makes a room remarkable are the details. Just about every room in the world can be awe-inspiring — it all depends on what treatments and embellishments the room has or could have. Every single plane of your room can be accented and "dressed" in architecture to make a statement. Millwork or plaster mouldings can be added to your room to make it shine. Of course, you should take into consideration the style of your house and add only what is natural to the architectural style.

Beginning with the ceiling, medallions or millwork can be features and focal points of your room. Medallions, for example, are meant to enhance lighting fixtures such as a chandelier or pendant. Medallions can be ornate or demure — as thin as a few inches to grand features that fan out and are festooned sometimes wider than two or three times the width of a chandelier. A room's ceiling can also be outlined following the shape of the room with moulding a foot or so off the top portion of any crown moulding. Of course, additional shapes such as curves and chamfers can be added in corners for a more decorative combination.

At the juncture of the wall and ceiling, crown moulding can be added. Even in the smallest room, this type of architectural enhancement is enough to give the room a feature for the eyes to rest upon. Crown mouldings can be as simple as a cove moulding to cover any imperfections where the wall and ceiling meet, to multi-part crown mouldings that conform to the scale of the space. A rule of thumb for sizing crown moulding is one-tenth the vertical dimension of the space. For example, in a conventional 8-foot floor-to-ceiling space, an 8-inch moulding is a good size.

Along the middle of the wall, there is always the opportunity to add a chair-rail. This moulding was intended to keep chairs from marking the walls, but nowadays it occupies a more decorative role at various heights depending on your ceiling height. When a chair-rail moulding is accompanied by other millwork to create boxed-out geometries that emulate paneling, then this whole composition is called a dado. This can be painted as trim, with the area above the dado in a contrasting color to highlight the architecture.

At the bottom of the wall are the baseboards. This type of millwork is meant to conceal the change in material from wall to floor and the uneven edges of flooring material. Generally, baseboards are a bit simpler than their higher counterpart, the crown moulding. However, some baseboards are topped by angled and curved mouldings intended to keep the dust off of the flat edge and slide it toward the floor, thus making it easier to clean. Again here, a similar rule of thumb applies for sizing baseboards: For an 8-foot ceiling height, the base should not exceed 8 inches.

Lastly, doors, windows and passage openings can be trimmed for a finished look. These mouldings are the most influential in giving a room an architectural style. Any room can be embellished, but it should always be in keeping with the interior decor. Otherwise, your room might look like it's wearing a tuxedo to a baseball game.