Window Trim, Window Casing

Hi folks

Happy New Year!  I am quite thankful the calendar turned.  December was a nightmare.  For me, December is one of the busiest months of the year @ work. Rightfully so with it being year end.  Compounding this was the Flu-demic that ravaged our home.  Between myself and the kids I think we were sick at least 3 times each. The wife was lucky and only came down with it really well once. Adding to this was we had the windows (12) on the front of our house replaced in the first 10 days of the month. There was no way I was going to accept the contractors, low-grade standard issue casing framing and accenting our new windows.



The kids wanted up on the scaffold

With the Holidays coming and the Christmas tree in the front living room window, this had to be done.  At our old house on all 3 floors I ripped out all baseboard, casing and interior doors.  These finishings in my opinion are the best way to refresh and update your home in one of the more inexpensive and affordable manners.  The caveat is time if you want it done correctly with style and quality.

Living Room

For our decision on "what to do", we borrowed the style and idea from our friend's home.  They purchased a home that was custom built and it is evident that time, thought and care was put into the finishings.  While I speak of them, check out Andrea's blog.  She is extremely talented.  Harlow & Thistle, and the link is http://harlowandthistle.blogspot.ca/.  She needs to be added to the "Borrowed Ideas" link.

Anyway, the idea we borrowed was that they had an extended sill wider than the actual casing frame.  What I found particularly brilliant about this is the lack for a need to join two 45 degree pieces of casing to form a joint.  As most can attest, when replacing trim in an existing home, you have no idea what is behind the existing trim and the condition of the drywall and window frame.  It can make it tough to ensure a tight fit. I added onto this idea by adding a top sill (for lack of a better term). I like the look. I am not sure how to describe it, but what comes to me is a "modern Roman" look.

The materials used were 1" x 4" primed MDF non-profiled casing and your standard 2x4's.  The 2x4's are what creates the extended sill.  What was done, (with the help of Andrea's hubby Tyler) is taking the 2x4's and ripping off the one edge.  As you know, a 2x4 has rounded edges.  These had to be removed.  After ripping off one edge, then I set the table saw fence to rip at 1.5". You can yield out of a 2x4 two 1.5" x 1.5" 8 foot lengths with hard edges.  After this is where the work comes in.  Lots of sanding to get the construction grade lumber to an acceptable paint-grade finish and then at least two coats of primer.  Priming helps cut down the painting requried after installation.  For this we used the standard CIL Trim, Door & High Traffic Semi-gloss.

Some of the challenges were...

1) the quality of the 2x4's.  I spent a lot of time going through the lift at the Lumber yard, but still ended up with warped, bowed and overly knotty pieces after cutting.  I expected this, but was still surprised at the number of pieces that were not sufficient.

2) in our Living Room & daughter's room, they have bay windows.  In our case there are 3 separate windows spaced by ~3-4" of drywall and on an angle giving the "Bay" appearance.  I decided to eliminate the need/nuisance of having a narrow strip of drywall between the windowcasing that need to be painted and maintained and cased in the entire window.

3) Finding that angle was fun.  22.5 degrees it was not.  It ended up being (after many test pieces) 20 degrees...

Anyway, the end result was worth it.  Our foyer & son's room are identical, and as mentioned, our LR & daughter's room are identical as well. 

Thanks for reading!
Ryan