From another post of mine:
I'm doing all the work by myself (as in one man, one pair of hands). I plan to put a temporary finishing nail at the ends of the wall, hang a loop of string loosely to it, and slip the ends of the crown molding in the loop to be my second pair of hands while working alone—comments about this technique or better ideas are much appreciated.
Any tips for measuring the walls for one person? This may sound stupid, but I'm planning on cutting a long strip of brown paper from a roll (trimmed to a manageable width) to measure with, hoping that because it is light but not super thin, I can tape one end of the paper strip to one end of the wall and pull it relatively tight (assuming brown paper won't stretch) and mark the paper at the other end of the wall. Then use the paper as a template to mark the cut on the molding. I'm considering this because I'm not sure I can find a way to get one end of a tape measure securely attached to the end of the wall I'm not holding, or be attached securely enough to pull the metal measuring tape taught enough to get an accurate measure without detaching it from the wall opposite the one I'm measuring to. Any tips better than what I'm planning with the paper template would be much appreciated (unless you think that will work).
I'm doing all the work by myself (as in one man, one pair of hands). I plan to put a temporary finishing nail at the ends of the wall, hang a loop of string loosely to it, and slip the ends of the crown molding in the loop to be my second pair of hands while working alone—comments about this technique or better ideas are much appreciated.
Any tips for measuring the walls for one person? This may sound stupid, but I'm planning on cutting a long strip of brown paper from a roll (trimmed to a manageable width) to measure with, hoping that because it is light but not super thin, I can tape one end of the paper strip to one end of the wall and pull it relatively tight (assuming brown paper won't stretch) and mark the paper at the other end of the wall. Then use the paper as a template to mark the cut on the molding. I'm considering this because I'm not sure I can find a way to get one end of a tape measure securely attached to the end of the wall I'm not holding, or be attached securely enough to pull the metal measuring tape taught enough to get an accurate measure without detaching it from the wall opposite the one I'm measuring to. Any tips better than what I'm planning with the paper template would be much appreciated (unless you think that will work).