It looks like the previous owners added a flat piece of wood to mimic crown molding. You can pry it off easily but the wall might be unpainted underneath, and you’ll definitely need to repair the drywall (either a little if it’s just holes or a lot if they used glue).

You can cover it up with bigger, real crown molding if that’s your style. I would do that so you can have it end at the cabinet as opposed to in the middle of the wall.

You may also find that you have an unfinished ceiling line, and unless you are familiar with tape and mud, you will have to hire a drywall person, unless, of course, you cover it up again with wider moulding. It doesnt really look all that bad to me, and I am assuming it is there for a reason.

Score it with a blade. If it's been painted, wall or trim, since trim was installed it will tear when you remove it. You will have a line/ridge of paint also to deal with.

good advice on here so far. I would also add, if you decide to pry this off, to use a small block of wood behind the prybar so you don't damage the walls further.

I wonder if it's unfinished on the highly visible kitchen wall because they didn't know how to make the trim end at the cabinets cleanly because of the moulding at the top of the cabinets. I will say that in an old 1970s house I used to own, the owners had very poorly installed crown moulding in one room and it was covering up some puny trim where some painted paneling met the ceiling. The corner where the paneling met the ceiling was indeed not finished and the paneling wasn't painted under the bigger crown moulding. I think all of the advice you have received is good that you are likely to have finish work to be done if you remove it. It looks ok and I think you could just finish it in the place where it's missing.

The trim should have been extended to the corner where the kitchen cabinets are and the end should be finished with a mitered return. Or, perhaps better, would be to go ahead and wrap the corner. Remove that short piece of cabinet crown first; then wrap the corner with the flat crown. Shorten up the cabinet crown & have it die into the flat crown.

Is the ceiling really two different colors? Because that bothers me most.

ETA: Also, I would paint that small section of wall the same color as the living area walls. color change at the corner.

I like the 'crown' and would leave it after extending that one piece like I said above^^^. It is clean, minimalist, modern. If you want more of a statement, you could stack another piece of flat stock on top of the existing.

And, if I did not like it, I would tolerate it until it was wall repaint time. For all of the reasons already mentioned.

My guess it's not there just for the heck of it. You will find its purpose was to "finish" end pieces and transition into the wall. Tread slowly and lightly you could end up with a room full of more work than removing it is worth.

That room would look great with some crown molding if you're up to the challenge. It's really not hard if you know the trick on setting your miter saw correctly like in this youtube. No jig req'd. Did my whole house and never did crown before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1MIi6v34_o&t=116s

Good advice above. If you decide to remove it, cut through the caulk at the bottom and top with a utility knife. Remove the trim with a _trim_ prybar, prying against a piece of scrap wood so that you don't damage drywall. Expect to paint the area you removed.

Update:

Since we're doing the floors at the same time... we asked our contractor to pull off the ceiling trim.

Would love anyone's expertise on what I'm looking at here. Did I make a huge mistake?

Thank you!

Yes, you did.

Welcome to home ownership! 😆 You can salvage it probably. Can you post a more up-close photo that shows the layers of paint/wood/drywall?

Corner was never taped and now the paper on the drywall is torn in at least one place. There will be a paint ridge and maybe caulk left behind. Which will make taping the corner and feathering the drywall compound and even more un-fun job. There will be a lot of prep to do before the corner can be taped. Oh yeh, and it will be dusty. When that is all done, then you get to paint everything and worry about matching any texture from the old paint and using the right primer so the new drywall work doesn't ghost thru the new paint. But all of that has already been said.

Ya, I would say you probably did make a mistake. Now you have torn drywall to mess with. It isnt finished at the ceiling, and since walls have been painted at least once, or maybe more, the roller texture of the new finish after, all the taping and sanding and patching have been done, will not match the rest of the wall. The ceiling is now textured, so taping the joint, will now be more work, to make the ceiling all look the way it should. You have created a lot of work now, where it actually looked just fine before.

Luckily this was in a small hallway room... It wasn't in the visible living room. Thanks for your help everyone.

I agree. It looks great. Its the way it should have been done, to begin with. I knew it could be done, but, I also knew it was going to take a good drywall person, and quite a bit of cash. Since, I really dont like crown moulding and have taken it out of every room, in my last two houses, I had a pretty darn good idea, what was under there. Congratulations on a job well done.