JLC magazine recently asked me to answer a reader’s question: What’s the right height for chair rail and wainscoting? Of course, everyone always wants the short answer, so here it is: Somewhere between 26 in. to 32 in. off the floor.
Now here’s the same answer I wrote in JLC, and I’ll bet you’ll regret asking this question! Read the full article…
Lately, my crew and I are installing a lot of flat stock casing in the homes that we trim out—which means I also have to make more and more radius casing to finish the tops of windows and doors that have arched heads. Besides the sizes of the openings always being different, some openings require a full semi-circular arch, while others require just a segmental arch. And occasionally we make radius casing that’s stained and top coated with fine finish. That’s when it’s even more important to get a perfect fit and a good grain match, too! Read the full article…
Back in the mid-1980s, my brother and I were growing tired of installing 1 1/2-in. clamshell casing, and 2 1/2-in. streamline baseboard. As finish contractors, that’s all we did on every job, day after day (after we had installed the doors and windows). By then we’d nailed off miles of small trim in thousands of apartments and hundreds of single-family homes. The market was starting to soften up about that time, and one of the contractors we worked for needed an edge against other spec builders in the same subdivision. We suggested upgrading the moldings in one of his homes. Not the whole house, mind you, only the first floor. We told him we’d do it for our cost, just to prove a point. Read the full article…
Every now and then you get to do something really fun. One of my recent, fun projects was a dining room ceiling in a new private residence with a 1920s design theme. We ran hundreds of feet of Pickwick paneling in this home—complete with hidden doors to storage areas, and the wall switches were push-button. Read the full article…
Years ago, in a Fine Homebuilding article, I explained how to build corbels for an Italianate mirror frame. I ran out of pages in that short article before I could discuss how to layout the pediment. I have plenty of room here, so I’ll cover that part of the story, and I’ll include all the material that we couldn’t fit into the Fine Homebuilding Master Carpenter article. Read the full article…
If you ever have that problem where the base is thicker than the casing, and—like me—you hate to see back-cut joints, try this little trick. Read the full article…
The joinery in baseboard forms the foundation for nearly all the joinery in finish carpentry, which makes perfect sense because baseboard is meant to replicate the foundation—the plinth—of a classical column. Though casing is the first molding profile noticed in a home, and often the first molding installed in a home, baseboard is usually the first molding that an apprentice carpenter learns to cut, and for good reason. Read the full article…
What matters when you’re laying out a coffered ceiling is the size of the finished beam, not the size of the crown molding. And you have to use the Outside Dimension of the full finished beam—the O.D.—not the backing or substrate you might be installing first. Read the full article…
Between my cabinet shop and remodeling company, I have the opportunity to work on a lot of fun and challenging projects. I recently tackled a project in which we converted a home office into a master bathroom. The interior designer on the project threw us a real curveball—(almost) literally! Read the full article…
I’ve heard carpenters and trim installation contractors complain that PVC trim expands and contracts too much. My comment to them is: Yes, cellular PVC trim does move, but so do all other exterior building products, and many of them just as much as, if not more than, cellular PVC.
Read the full article…