How A Carpenter Can Help With Design Upgrades In Your Home

Chances are good that your home already contains some wood trims, such as baseboards and casing for your doors and windows. However, there are many more examples of wood trim, finishes, and mouldings. Here we will look at a few of the most popular examples, examining where they fall on the spectrum between the largely functional and the purely decorative.

Chair Rail

A chair rail is a type of wood trim that completely encircles the room at a height of about three feet or approximately waist height on an adult. It can add some visual interest to the space and break up an otherwise monochromatic wall colour. However, that is not its primary purpose. A chair rail can also serve as a barrier between the wall and chairs in the room, protecting paint or wallpaper from becoming scuffed when someone pulls out a chair too quickly. For this reason, chair rails are most often found in dining rooms and home offices.

Picture Rail

Another way that walls can sustain damage is by driving nails or tacks into them to hang up pictures. A picture rail is intended to prevent your room from being bare while protecting your walls by giving you a place from which to hang artwork. To allow you to hang all sizes of frames, both large and small, at a height where they can be viewed comfortably, a picture rail is installed high up off the floor, approximately seven to nine feet. To put it another way, a picture rail is usually only about a foot below the ceiling. As with the chair rail, the picture rail itself is only a couple of inches high at most.

Crown Molding

Crown moulding is installed at the point where the ceiling meets the walls. While this joint is generally inoffensive to the eye, some people find it plain and bare. Crown moulding covers up this joint and works as an accent, giving the room more personality and adding a touch of elegance. If you have a small room that you would like to feel bigger, crown moulding can create that effect by drawing the eye upwards.

Crown moulding comes in a lot of different styles, ranging from the relatively plain to the ornate. People use crown moulding in various ways as well. Some like to paint it the same colour as the ceiling so that the transition between the walls and the ceiling appear smooth and seamless. However, some people like to create a bit of visual contrast by installing crown moulding that is a different colour from either the ceiling or the walls.

Baseboards

Baseboards are the opposite of crown moulding, covering the space between the flooring and the walls. Where crown moulding tends to be more decorative, baseboards tend to be more functional. Their purpose is to protect the carpets and prevent insect pests from getting into the house from the space between the walls and floor. Baseboards typically range in height from two to five inches. Because they are often hidden behind furniture, they are often plain, although some can be more ornate.
Installing decorative wood trims requires extreme precision in measuring and cutting the material. Handyman Connection carpenters can save you a lot of unnecessary frustration by handling the installation for you. Our professionals can also handle any other repair services you may require when you contact our Red Deer location.