Bulking Up

We decided to really, I mean REALLY, beef up our millwork here. 

Our starting point was some trim that was likely installed in the 1970's, along with the windows.  It was once the cheapest cuts of wood, some not fit to be seen outside of walls, that was once an oak colour and was poorly painted white.  Well, not all the way, you could still see some original colour peeking through.

Lucky us, everything on the main floor needed to be ripped out during the flooring and window installation - a blank canvas.  The master bedroom and one of the other rooms still have the original trim so we did our best to match it and did, we loved the simple and classic look. 

After shopping around the Toronto area, we found the best pricing and customer service at Classic Wood Mouldings.  We went with - an 8" baseboard with a very simple sloping shape.  The door frames are 4" and match the base boards, with an additional casing with back band.  What we did additionally was added a header, which I'll explain below.  For the window frames, we did the same but added a substantial sill with an additional piece below.

Here's a view of the baseboards.  When we put our order in we included a piece of quarter round but have been going back and forth over installing it or not.  Right now it is very simple but the quarter round would help to fill where there is a teeny bit of space, where the 8" piece doesn't quite hit the flooring.  J mentioned the other day it might be going in sooner rather than later, but we'll see!

J custom built each header after the frames were installed.  To do this, he used a plain piece of 1"x5" plate.  On the bottom is a casing with back band and to top it all off is crown moulding.  Here's a (darkish - sorry!) look.

Here's a look back at what the trim looked like before we took possession.

And you'll notice in the next two photos (used in my last post too) that we chose not to reinstall the French doors between the dining and living room and the hall and stairs to the basement.  When they came down, we were so pleased to find that it wasn't original to the house.  Instead, they were actually finished with plaster and in good shape.  We had to do a little beautifying but things flow much nicer now.

We have big plans for upstairs that include refinishing the stairs, restaining the hardwood flooring and a complete washroom gut.  It made holding off on replacing the trim upstairs an easy decision and know that will come in time.