Design Considerations

Overall

Selecting mouldings is very much a personal choice. Having said that, there are a number of factors which you should consider. These are described briefly below.

Symmetry: Normally your baseboards and casings will reflect the same profile. By doing so the house is brought together.


Depth of Profile: The thicker the moulding, the more profile it will have. Better quality mouldings usually are ¾” thick. These profiles give the room a much richer look. Generally suburban homes come with mouldings 3/8” thickness.


Crisp Profile lines: The crisper the profile line, the more the moulding will stand out. By using finger joint or solid wood the profile lines are very crisp. By using MDF the lines are less crisp and hence will not stand out as well.


Proportionality:Sizing the profile to your room is important. As a rule of thumb we suggest the following:

Ceiling height Baseboard Casing Crowns
Stand 8 ft 4 to 5” 2 ½” 4 ½”
9 ft ceiling 5” plus 3 ½” 5 ½”
Over 9 ft 5” plus 3 ½” with backband 5 ½” plus

Proportionality also appears to vary by community. Houses in Toronto tend to use larger trim and backbands than those in Ottawa.

Wood Type

Generally we prefer fingerjoint pine trim.  Both the depth of profile and crisp lines are obtained at reasonable product cost.  In addition, it comes in pre-determined lengths of 14 or 16 feet which minimizes waste.

American Yellow Poplar is a good solid wood.  It is excellent for painting and more durable than fingerjoint.  Like any solid wood it costs more. MDF is great if price is your most important variable.  It will not wear nearly as well as fingerjoint pine and the profiles are not as distinct

Pine, Maple or Oak:  If you seek wood for staining, any one of these will do an excellent job.  Remember, with pine you can stain it to reflect any natural wood for colour.

Baseboards and Casings

We recommend you select the profile you wish and then settle on the size. Selecting profiles is very much a personal choice. Colonial (classic) profiles are the most popular. More modern profiles would include the Glebe or Hopper series which feature simple and straight lines.

For very large homes or when trying to match mouldings in older homes, you may need very large trim. Either a 7¼” base or baseboards with extensions may be the answer. For these options see our combination page. Another approach is to place a decorative moulding about 2” above your baseboard. Again, check our combination page.

Shoe mouldings are placed at the bottom of the baseboard. Functionally they are used to hide any cracks between the baseboard and the floor. Aesthetically, shoe mouldings can add distinctiveness to larger baseboards. We suggest you look at our combination page for these options.

Casings and Headers

Casings are for around windows and doorways. Normally your casing will be about 2” smaller than your baseboard. Casing is the largest item and the most seen in the household. So select the trim which most appeals to you.

Casings can be enhanced with backband. For larger homes, using backband throughout the house is common, particularly in Toronto. Another option would be to use backband and headers in your main formal areas. Our combination page features these trim elements.

The use of headers is a great way to improve an entranceway. It can also be used throughout the house.

The use of bullnose or full sill coupled with a smaller apron piece is a nice touch on windows . Again, check the combination page for illustrations

Crown Mouldings

First select what type of crown profile you want:
For ornate crown or those with stylized designs, plaster or polymer mouldings are the best approach.
For simple lines and curves, wood mouldings are best.
For price, MDF mouldings best fit the bill.

Wood and MDF mouldings are Classic Wood Mouldings specialities. Wood mouldings feature very crisp profiles which show extremely well.

You can enhance crown mouldings in a number of ways. You can add a casing trim either on the bottom or top of the crown. This makes the crown look bigger without encroaching on the room. Another option is to to make symmetrical combinations with a casing on either side with a crown in the middle.

Or you can add a decorative piece about 6” below the crown. See combination page for any of these options.

MDF is becoming more popular. Just make sure you are happy with the profile, compared to that of wood. Many consumers have learned over time that the crispness of wood mouldings is their preference both for casings and crown.

Decorative Mouldings

Panelling with decorative trim will enhance any wall area. Product #26a mullion is our most popular panel moulding. Generally there is a chair rail 36” from the floor and panels are approximately 24” high. Boxes can be of varying sizes depending on the wall width.

Chair rails are great for dividing colour schemes. They are not particularly popular on their own. Chair rails can be one piece or made from product combinations.

Rosettes and base blocks reflect a colonial design. They do enhance quality mouldings. We find customers either really like them or they don’t like them at all.

Using bullnose or full window sill for your windows is a very attractive approach. We suggest you use casing under the bullnose. This is called an apron and is one size smaller than the casing used for the rest of the window, e.g. casing for window is #6 then the apron would be #5.

Door Jambs and door stop

Our approach is to build and sell jambs which will last the life of the house. Hence we only use wood and our jambs are a full ¾” thick. There are definitely cheaper approaches such as MDF, but replacing these after a few years due to a door sticking or being heavily dented is not the best long term solution. We machine our doors with our jambs using 3 hinges, custom door stop and custom made for left or right hand hinge.