Finished Carpentry
  

Crown Molding

Chair Rail

Base Board

Casings

Wall Frames or Wainscoting

Beadboard

Pilasters

Other Trim

Gallery

  

Defined: Finish carpentry or trim carpentry refers to any kind of interior woodworking in a house. The picture below gives many examples. The tradesman builds and installs the moldings and built-in cabinets which most likely are painted or stained. In other words, the finish carpenter puts in the visible interior wood.
Decorating with Trimwork
  By adding trimwork – door and window casings, crown moldings, wall frames and the like – can add a distinctive touch to any home. In most applications, trimwork offers functionality as well. Moldings used to trim doors and windows are called casings. Most new homes built today use drywall at these openings. These drywall passageways are often easily scraped and dented leaving unsightly blemishes. By adding decorative casings, the wall corners are protected.
   Crown molding or cornices create a decorative transition between the wall and ceiling.
A common crown molding question is; what size do I install? A general rule of thumb is a 3-4 inch width crown for a standard 8 foot ceiling room. While 4 inch plus crown will do with 9 foot plus ceiling.
 Hallway
Chair rails protect the wall from damage by chair backs while separating the room for differing decorative touches. Chair rail can stand alone or cap off a wall frame treatment such as a wainscoting.Wall frames look like a group of empty picture frames installing along the bottom of a wall. Painted to either the same color as the wall or a contrasting color, wall frames gives a room a prominent textured appearance.
   Trimwork adds a magical dimension to your decorating. This phenomenon is often referred to as “geometric illusion.” The long horizontal lines can make a room appear larger and wider while the vertical lines make ceilings look higher.
   Decorative moldings trick the eye in another fashion. With molding painted white or another light shade, the trimwork tones down the other colors in the room. Once a room is trimmed, the decorator has many more color options.  
   One common decorative problem today is the open floor plan design. With cathedral ceilings in one room flowing freely into the next, there is no defined separation. This creates a challenge when two rooms share the same wall. How do you paint in the hallway and possible wallpaper the adjoining living room? The answer is to use architectural vertical trimwork such as installing pilasters.
Trimwork Styles
   In order to decorate with trimwork, you must consider what trim will complement the historical character of your home. Mixing various trimwork styles in one can be difficult.             
   While you might be able combine rudiments from the Victorian and Federal styles other groupings may conflict. For instance, the flat, square profiles of the Arts and Crafts trim would be unsuited with an ornate Victorian décor. Conversely, the thick, hearty and square line with rounded edges of Craftsman-style furniture is unsuited with the smaller, beveled colonial type trim found on homes today. Owners of broad, flat, rectangular mission type furniture might consider a change in trim styles to match their furnishings. A house that drastically changes style from room to room lacks coherence. The flat clamshell moldings fitted in many homes are incompatible with traditional furnishings. By replacing these plain moldings with a more ornate colonial type, would result in a more consistent interior decoration. For an excellent examples of different molding styles, go to WindsorOne's web site:
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