If at first....

you don't succeed, caulk the hell out of it.

Crown moulding seemed a good idea at the time (someone else's idea as I didn't even know what it was called). We arrange a chap to come in and help on it, but he was being as unreliable as ever, so we got on with it ourselves.

Things went badly nearly from the start. All I can say is thank heavens for the purchase of the $35 Finish Nailer a couple of weeks ago. We nailed this crown moulding within an inch of it's life, mainly in the wrong places.

One piece of moulding ended up with 27 nails in a 24 inch section - and still only managed to get 2 nails to connect with something solid. I'm not convinced the "solid" wasn't just a lump of prehistoric paint rather than a joist or stud I'm aiming for.

Anyway, after more than a few arguments, and huge amount of stress, and redoing several parts, we got it finished, and the wife got onto filling all the nail holes.

I could be generous and say that our corners were marvelous, but they weren't. They will be once they've been spackled to death - can you sculpt with spackling? Yes, yes you can. The end result is quite pleasing and something that any sculptor would be proud to put their name against.

After spacking comes caulking. Caulking fills all the gaps. There were many. 5 tubes of caulk later and there are less now.

So what did we learn? Never to do crown moulding again on a ceiling that isn't level. Bit like learning never to lay flooring on an uneven floor, or skirting boards on uneven floors, or make wall arches on a floor that isn't straight against the ceiling that isn't level and walls that are at different angles.

At least the next two houses are more straight than this one.