Choosing and Installing Decorative Moulding

Most new homes are built with very simple moulding in order to keep the cost of
construction down. This will usually consist of a basic baseboard lining the
floors, with simple, narrow casings installed around windows and doors. However
if you want to really give your homes interior a unique and personal style, you
can install more elaborate moulding options yourself at a later date. While this
is a job that has a moderate level of difficulty, you can save yourself a lot of
money by doing the installation work yourself.

There are three basic types of decorative molding that you can install in your
home. Baseboard runs along the ground, and is designed the fill the gap between
floors and walls. Casing is the moulding that is placed around windows and doors
to give them an elegant finished look. And then you have crown moulding which is
installed at the top of your walls, in order to connect them to the ceiling
while hiding any seams.

You also have other more specialty molding options. Chair railing molding is
placed at about 30 inches above the floor, running horizontal to protect the
walls from chairs bumping back into them. Then there is banister moulding which
acts as the cap on stair railing, spindles, which line the sides of a staircase,
and newel post, which is the central support column to a staircase.

When you choose the type of moulding that you want to install you need to first
look at the style of your home. The more classic and traditional your home is
the more elaborate and ornate you can get. However this looks out of place in
modern or ranch style homes, where a simpler design should be used.

Once you have chosen a style, you should draw up a floor plan of the room to
determine how much wood you are going to need. In some cases longer walls may
force you to join several pieces of moulding together to stretch along its
length. Do your best to buy as much material as you need, then get a few extra
feet to allow you to create seams or fill in gaps.

Allow the wood to rest in the room it will be used in for a few days before you
start working so it can adjust to the temperature. Before you begin, prime,
stain, or paint it, and allow it to dry thoroughly. Then using careful
measurements begin to cut the wood to size, using the proper miter angles to
ensure that joints and seams will fit together properly. Here you need to be
very careful, using the old admonishment “measure twice, cut once” in order to
ensure that every piece is used properly with no waste.

As you work line the molding up against the wall to make sure that everything
fits properly. Small gaps can be taken care of with filler, but try your best to
avoid any large spaces between the wood. Once you have everything lined up
perfectly and sized to your exact specifications, you can begin to nail the
moulding to the wall using very fine finishing nails. Use a small hammer or nail
gun, and then set the head beneath the surface of the material with a
countersink.

At this point caulk can be used to fill gaps and wood filler can be used to
cover up nail holes. Try to use these materials sparingly as they will often
stain a slightly different color than the wood itself.

This article is brought to you by PebbleZ’s line of natural stone, large
coffee tables, which are hand crafted in the United States using real
mosaic stone pieces. The article itself was written by design philosopher Joey
Pebble.