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My goal, someday, is to have casing around ALL of the windows in the house. I’m starting with the lower floor. And more specifically, in terms of this blog, I’m starting with the dining room. Mostly because the camera was closest to the dining room. That’s how this blog works: on laziness.
But let’s back up for one quick sec. My doors have trim (aka “casing”). My windows and some of the interior door frames don’t. While this may not bother most some people, it bothers me. It’s like my house played with a chemistry set and blew its eyebrows off. It’s odd-looking. Not odd enough that you notice right away… but something is definitely off.
From seeing pictures of others doing this, I already know that adding trim to windows has a pretty big payoff without spending a lot of dough. For example (from Pretty Handy Girl):
See how light and bright that looks? So much better. So, last night, I spent a little while looking around my sad, unpainted dining room and realized that with the chair rail in place, I wouldn’t be able to properly fit trim around the large window. Simple problem, simple fix: I marked off the area that would fit the new trim (which is very simple trim; for the neighborhood I live in, nothing needs to be too fancy for this house, and the type I bought matches the existing trim around the doorways).
Then, I used an oscillating tool to separate the piece I don’t need from the rest of the existing molding (which prevents me from having to take down, cut, and put the chair rail back up).
Then, it was a few blows of a hammer and a small pry bar to get the piece off the wall.
And the new window casing will fit quite nicely.
I haven’t yet nailed the new pieces up since the rest of the drywall still needs to be sanded a little (and I’m waiting on a new helper tool to arrive in the mail before I can finish it off). But prepping all of these pieces ahead of time will make the entire room come together that much quicker. P.S. Those blinds are the very last in this house original to the day I moved in. They will be trashed soon (yuck!).
I’m told that adding trim around things can trigger the urge to add molding everywhere. Luckily, I have about a billion bare windows in this house, so it will be a while before anyone needs to host an intervention. Onward!
weeeeeee!
Trimming is SO addicting. I think I decide to replace casings on some part of my house every time i go to Big Orange.
Have fun!
The first thing I did was look at my windows…. And yes I do have trim there, but not as pretty as yours. Just plain rectangular wood things. And yes, I think they would look odd without them.
But what I do personally, is paint the trims of windows and doors the same color as the wall. I do not like the “contrasting” color of white and painted walls, same with the baseboards.
Wanna come do mine? It would be a bitch – our home has those lurvely radius corners, so pretty much NOTHING is plumb, and EVERYTHING would need to be cased in square, unless we decided to rip off the drywall, remove the plastic radius corner, and patch over every. single. corner. in the damn house. Fun times, right? RIGHT? You know you wanna visit California…LOL
House of Hepworths had a similar issue. Not sure if her solution would work! And just because I think it’s only helpful to not make you Google it, here’s the link to her post: http://www.houseofhepworths.com/2010/12/28/adding-moulding-to-rounded-corners/
Oh great…. Now you have me thinking about window trims in my house. I wonder if the builders will add them and if not then I think you have just given my husband a job to add to his list.
Lia, have the builders do it if you can. Are you also having them do crown?
Im with you, I do not like the look of windows without trim. I dont get it.
All of our windows have trim in the new place – but it is all green. Im not sure that green is any better than not there at all. Oy.
Also – I know you will appreciate this – When I painted my mudroom floor, I made the tragic mistake of painting myself away from my beer.
I love that story except for hating that you lost your beer. What a shame. Still a beautiful result on that floor!
While it looks better it is a PITA when you have to paint it. I don’t mind painting walls but trim, especially around the windows is tedious. Around the door is bad enough.
My house is 1970 ish and the previous owner had all of the trim painted the same color as the walls so I’ve been repainting all of it white (and in most cases needing to repaint the walls). My blue bedroom (I haven’t repainted it yet) would probably not need repainting if I simply paint all of the trim white, replace the outlets (also painted blue), and get some new curtains.
Good luck with the work.
Agreed. While painting trim is never really fun, I think the end result is totally worth the effort. Since most of the house needed painting anyway, it hasn’t been too bad. I’ve had to paint so many walls in this house that cutting in isn’t as difficult as it once was. And there’s always Frogtape! Love that stuff.
Thank you for discussing this. I have the same issue with windows. Now I know what I need to do to fix it — down the road after my floor is tiled (by others), new baseboard and new door trim are added.
I’m thinking where were we before the multi-tool. nicely done Sarah! (checked out the rates page too for the first time. like the little “sponsor this post” addition at the bottom of the post. hats off, very pro.)
Haha, took a while to figure that one out, but I did! I love the design part of blogging. New site all about it will be launching later this month, fyi!
you do it well. and I so need to get on some of that! media kit, advertising page … but finding the time to “figure it out.” ugh! … it’s enough writing and promoting, doing stuff, responding to people and following around my fav blogs (like I’m on tour with a summer festival). ;~) best of luck with the launch.
Thanks! If you need help, just submit the request through http://www.sweettheorydesigns.com and we can figure something out – I’m affordable :). I will gladly share my resources as well.
hmmm … that doesn’t look like you. ha! but help (esp. on the ad end) has been something I have been noodling. I’ll try to check it out.
Wow girl, you’ve surely got some endurance. Great job on the house so far! Molding on windows can do a lot to elongate windows and even make ceilings look higher. It sounds like you’ve already replaced quite a few blinds, but let us know if you need any help when you’re gearing up for the next few windows!