IIServices · The Trade
Trim carpentry, line by line.
Trim is the handwriting of a house. It is the quiet set of lines that decide whether a room reads as finished or just painted, and Cape houses keep their value in exactly these details.
Most people never name the trim in a room they admire, they just feel that it is right. Here are the pieces, and the profiles that give a house its accent.
The elements of trim
- Crown molding
- The molding where wall meets ceiling. It lifts a room and, cut and coped tight at the corners, is the clearest sign of a careful hand.
- Casing
- The trim around windows and doors. It frames the openings and, more than anything, sets the character of the room.
- Baseboard and shoe
- The trim at the floor, with a shoe molding that covers the gap to floors that are never dead flat.
- Chair and picture rail
- Horizontal trim at chair height or near the ceiling, traditional on the Cape and often paired with wainscot or paint breaks.
- Coped joints
- Not a piece but a method: inside corners are coped, not mitered, so they stay tight when the house moves through the seasons.
Profiles, and how they read
- Colonial and traditional
- Softer curves and beads. The default for older Cape and colonial houses.
- Craftsman
- Flatter, squarer stock with simple reveals. Reads honest and architectural.
- Modern and square
- Minimal, flat casing with clean edges for a contemporary room.
- Matched historic
- Where an old profile is no longer milled, we have knives ground to match, so a repair or an addition disappears into the original.
Why it matters
Buyers and appraisers read trim the way we do, up close, and it is where a house shows whether it was cared for. Good trim is not expensive material, it is patient labor, and it is the cheapest way to make a room feel expensive.
How it is quoted
Measured on site, written into a scope with materials by name and profile, and finished under the same workmanship warranty as everything we build.
Put it in writing.
A site visit and a written proposal cost nothing. Scope, materials, schedule and price, in a document you can hold us to.