Decorative mouldings add a beautiful finishing touch to a room. While most homes are built with standard baseboard mouldings as well as door and window trim, beautiful decorative trim work such as up-graded trims, chair rail and crown moulding are often selected and installed as each room in the home is decorated.

Decorative mouldings are architectural details installed to trim floors, doors, windows, walls, and ceilings. If carefully installed, they can enhance any décor and increase the value of any home. They will help to express your sense of style, add visual enhancement and give a finished look to your room.

At the House of Fine Carpentry, we have over 100 types or combinations

of interior trim pieces for most any finishing application. Here are some tips on choosing decorative mouldings:

• Select moulding styles based on the architectural style of your home and of the room you are decorating. Contemporary homes will use sleeker mouldings while period style homes can use more detailed decorative moulding.
• Framing a window does a lot to dress it up and make it look finished. This decorative moulding is called casing, and is used to hide the gap between the window frame and wall. Casings measure anywhere from 2” to 8”. A sill and apron are usually installed at the bottom of the window. Choose a style to compliment your crown and other trim choices.
• Casing to match the window casing is also installed around a door frame to complete the look in a room. This moulding covers gaps in installation between the frame of the door and the wall.
• A baseboard is applied where the wall and floor meet. While especially decorative and grounding, this moulding is used to conceal the gap between the two surfaces, and also helps to protect the wall from scuffs caused by shoes, furniture, or a vacuum. 2” to 8” is a common range of heights for baseboard moulding.
• A chair rail is a strip of wood installed horizontally over the wall at a height to protect a wall from being damaged by a chair. It divides the top of the wall from the lower, and is often used to cover the edge of wainscoting panels or wallpaper.
• Inexpensive strips of moulding measuring from 1” to 3” diameter are arranged to frame areas of a wall, forming the look of recessed panels. The moulding and inner section can be painted one colour and the outer area another for a dramatic look, or the whole area can be one colour to achieve a subtle architectural transformation.
• Simple wood moulding can transform a basic, boring bookcase into a substantial piece of furniture with crown or cabinet moulding around the top, flat shaped strips on the sides and defining the shelves, and baseboards around the bottom. The pieces can be glued on or nailed. Then paint the whole piece to match, and no one will be the wiser.
• If a smooth painted finish isn't required you can emphasize a moulding's details by applying then wiping off a layer of umber glaze. The glaze will settle into the crevices, highlighting the details of the moulding. Test colours and techniques on pieces of scrap moulding before applying to your project.