How To Put Decorative Molding on a Piece of Furniture

January 23, 2019 7:32 AM

We had a box-like structure built to mask our TV, but it's too short and I want to add molding to the top but don't know what or how...

This box-like thing was made and attached to the top of an existing old wooden table to house our TV and cable box. But it's too short by about 3 inches!

Here are two pictures of this structure:

Picture 1

Picture 2

It's too short because, after planning it out we decided to put the cable box under the TV without allowing for the extra height (in other words, we were stoooopit). Also it's kind of ugly the way it is now, just a plain almost-box.

My idea is to get some wooden decorative molding and (after staining and polyurethaning it to match the existing wood) attach it to the top. But I don't know how to do this (I was not the person who made this thing and I don't really want to pay him to come back).

The wood of this thing is pine, 3/4" deep. If I bought 3/4" wooden decorative molding, how would I attach it to the present wood? Do you get "brads" (whatever those are) without heads, nail them along the current wood, then smash (woops, I mean gently tap) the molding down into the tops of them? First putting some wood glue on both surfaces?

Actually my fantasy is that there would be something like 3" tall wooden spirally things that I could hammer into the top, but I don't know if such things exist.

Really any suggestions much appreciated!

posted by DMelanogaster to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

You could attach to the top by drilling some holes into the top boards (carefully, I don't know how brittle that wood is) and the wood you want to attach at the top, then glue the two together using dowels. That way, you don't have anything that's visible holding it all together, and since the top isn't holding any weight, it doesn't need to be especially structurally sound.

You could also use a biscuit joiner, but that's a specialized piece of equipment, so I'm not sure if you have one of those.
posted by xingcat at 7:36 AM on January 23, 2019

You'd probably be fine with a thin bead of construction adhesive for the mouldings, to be honest.
posted by pipeski at 7:54 AM on January 23, 2019

Also, I think the things you're talking about are probably finials. It'll look kind of like a medieval church pulpit, if that's the look you're going for.
posted by pipeski at 7:59 AM on January 23, 2019

Instead of adding molding to make it taller, I would build a new cable box-box, and instead of having 2 devices stacked on top of each other, widen it so they it next to each other (and make it shorter). Here's a rough illustration to help you visualize

then, if you do choose to add molding for decorative purposes, you just add it to the face of the existing box.
posted by FirstMateKate at 8:05 AM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]

I was going to make FirstMateKate' suggestion. But if you still want to add to the height, using wood glue is going to be more than sufficient. It's not structural, so biscuits or dowels is overkill in my book. I wood stain things before you glue them because even if you wipe off misplaced glue, the stain isn't going to absorb there.

As far as what kind of molding, your best bet is to walk around Home Depot or Lowe's. They have one big aisle with all the typical moldings you find around doors and windows or at the floor, then a smaller section with fancier stuff like dental molding. And bring your ruler, because wood is rarely the size it says it is (i.e the 2 x 4)
posted by jonathanhughes at 8:53 AM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]

Taking this a different direction, could you add shelves/brackets under the table so those devices are hanging under there and provide some visual balance to the whole structure? I'm basically picturing that little light-colored box, but flipped and mounted to the bottom of the table-top. And actually I think it'd be best as two such things, each a little shallower (or one wide one, sure), again to balance things out better, but if you're done building stuff you could just use the one.
posted by teremala at 9:24 AM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: FirstMateKate: thanks for the diagram, but putting the DVD player alongside the cable box will only give me about an inch of extra height — not the 3 inches I need. I could build a shelf beneath the tabletop. I’d been avoiding that, but everyone (well, some) seem to notice the top-heaviness of this silly structure, so maybe that’s what needs to happen.
posted by DMelanogaster at 10:55 AM on January 23, 2019