How to Choose the Right Wood Moulding for Your Renovation

Choose just the right wood moulding to add that finishing touch which brings everything together beautifully. Sounds easy, right? Well it can be with our handy guide on how to go about picking wood mouldings that best fit your renovation.

Wood Moulding choice guide: easy mode

• Select the type of wood
• Select the type of moulding
• Select aesthetic: more elaborate, or clean lines

Wood

One of the nice things about wood mouldings is there are a lot of choices! For example, you can select from a variety of natural woods, including pine, fir, hem-fir, cedar, oak, maple or other hardwoods. Each has its own look and feel and the choices cover a wide range of budgets.

Type of wood moulding

There are several types of moulding to consider: 

• Baseboard mouldings cover the seam between the wall and the floor.
• Crown mouldings cover the seam between the wall and the ceiling.
• Casings cover door and window seams.
• Chair rails protect walls from chair backs.
• Picture rails are place near the ceiling to break up the space

Which you choose will depend on the size of the room and the style of your architecture. While all are decorative, baseboards, chair rails and picture rails offer additional functionality as well. Baseboards and chair rails protect the walls from wet mops, chairs, or accidental bumps. Picture rails, used to balance large spaces, also hang pictures.

Moulding aesthetic

Aesthetics is another thing to consider as well. How elaborate should your wood mouldings be? How large? What kind of mouldings should you include in your design: baseboards, casings, crown mouldings, picture rails, chair rails; all of the above? 

Certainly, if your home has a colonial, gothic, or victorian architectural style, larger, more elaborate mouldings would be most complementary. Larger wood mouldings balance large spaces. So add complex designs to crown mouldings, baseboards and casings, and make use of picture rails and chair rails as well. 

If you prefer more of a Scandinavian style–very popular right now–where simplicity is king, then simple and functional look best. Modest baseboards and/or casings are likely enough to evoke this minimalist style.

Generally speaking, if the room being renovated is small, then simple mouldings with smooth, clean lines are enough to add a touch of elegance and class. The larger the room, the more fancy you can get.

We hope this little guide was helpful. If your renovation plans include replicating wood mouldings that were already in place, or copying the style from another room, we can design and mill that exact look for you. Best of luck with your project!

Alpine Mouldings specialises in producing high-quality wood products that are manufactured to the specifications you need. Our materials are sourced from high-quality Canadian lumber. Give us a call to see what’s available. 403-627-8873