Kitchen Materials: Moldings and Trim
Even an architecturally challenged room can be made interesting by the judicious use of quality moldings and door and window trim. On the other hand overblown fancy chair rails, picture moldings and crown moldings can turn a simple kitchen into a rococo nightmare. Well designed trim work installed by a skilled finish carpenter is one of the keys to a successful interior design.
Trim surrounds doors and windows, joins ceilings and walls and may be used to divide and add interest to walls. Crown moldings, chair rails (so called because they originally protected walls from chairs), wainscoting, baseboard and toe moldings are all options in any room. In choosing them you must take historical period and design style in mind. Fancy Victorian molding would be out of place in a mid-century modern ranch, for instance.
Trim can be finished with glossy paints or stained and covered with a clear coat. If you have painted trim and are considering stripping it to finish it natural, bear in mind that if it was painted originally it is probably a ‘paint grade’ wood. This means no attempt was made to match grains or coloring and defects may have been filled with putty. Woodwork meant to be painted probably should be painted.
If you are installing naturally finished trim, make sure your carpenter matches color, tone and grain wherever possible and uses clear wood with no knots. Painted trim should be smoothly caulked at all seams by the painter for a clean, finished job. This also gives them a place to paint a clean edge between colors. In wallpapered rooms, trim is painted first and the color overlaps onto walls. Paper is run up to the woodwork and trimmed in a straight line giving a nice finish.
Many moldings are now on the market molded from plastics and foams. This is done in part to offset the high cost of solid wood and to mimic plaster moldings with their many fancy details. Properly installed and painted they should be indistinguishable from wood. Very cheap plastic moldings may have rounded edges and other inconsistencies that may give away their inexpensive nature.
