Dentils are a detail used almost to excess in this style. Greek Revival (1825-1860)– Typically, wide bandings of trim both inside and out were common with significant door casings reminiscent of classical Greek and Roman styles. Unless noted otherwise, the trim was typically painted a semi-gloss bright white color. Going into detail about each individual architectural style is well beyond the scope of this article, but we would like to give a few details about some of the more common house styles across America and the moldings typically found within. There are hundreds of trim styles and patterns available at mills and home stores today.
Done properly, it can make a room seem taller or shorter depending on what the designer wants. Even crown molding helps to dress up the transition from wall to ceiling. A semi-gloss casing is much more resistant to marking than the flat paint on your walls. And, let’s not forget the thousands of hands that will handle the doorway over its lifetime. It gives a perfectly straight line and a finished feel to the space.ĭoorways are another element that need room to fit just right and in this situation, casings hide the imperfect joints and shims used to level the door. Slight imperfections can be hidden by moldings, which ultimately make the transition look even nicer than a clean transition could.Ī good baseboard hides the ugly transition between plaster/drywall and your floor. These are all places where it saves time and material if you have a little leeway with the perfection of your cuts. Doorjambs meet walls, walls meet floors, and ceilings meet walls. Form follows function, right? Transitions from one type of material to another in a house can be very difficult to perfect. Moldings came about because they both simplify the process of assembling a house and also beautify it. But, as the country matured, so did its stylistic tastes in molding. It was a wild country and the focus was on survival. On the simple frontier homes of early colonial America, there wasn’t much need for the fanciful trim and moldings present in European homes at the time. The trim installed in your home has gone through a lot of changes over the last couple of centuries.