How common is trim that was originally painted?

[awomanwithahammer]

The trim in my 1941 house has always been painted, and it's some sort of pine or fir. I don't know how you tell if it's Douglas fir, though. I know that's later than your house, so may not be helpful.

[GinaC]

Gina, might be faux graining. Not uncommon.

Yes, I've seen that before. Mine is definitely real graining.

The trim in my 1941 house has always been painted, and it's some sort of pine or fir. I don't know how you tell if it's Douglas fir, though. I know that's later than your house, so may not be helpful.

And I said oak, but I meant pine. The graining looks like pine, but I didn't think people even stained pine.

Here's a shot of the baseboard and crown moldings in the dining room. The rest of the house has the same stuff.

[awomanwithahammer]

Boy, my dyslexia is in full force. I've been reading your post handle as "1904 Tudory Minimal..." instead of 1940, so our houses are contemporaneous.

Your crown molding looks a lot like what was in only the living room, dining room and master bedroom in my house. Is it quite narrow, like 2" or so? I installed a wider cove crown in all the rooms because to my eye, with the 9 foot ceilings, the narrow stuff might as well not even have been there.

[Gothichome]

Gina, your trim does look to be pine or fir. I believe that was standard in most homes of the period. I think it was the builders option to either paint or stain. Same for your crown mouldings, are they plaster and moulded into the wall/ceiling or does it appear to be an add on. They would be painted either ceiling colour to visually bring down the height of the ceiling or could have just as well be painted a complimentary colour to match the wall paper.

[GinaC]

Bonnie, yes, it's only about 2 1/2" wide. My ceilings are only 8 feet, so I don't think I want to go wider than that. They seem to balance the rooms well.

Gothichome, they do appear to be regular added on molding as I can see nail heads and seams. But why would they paint it white in a room with all wood paneling? Here's a pic of an upper corner of the solarium.

Don't you both agree that it would look better stained to match the rest of the room?

[awomanwithahammer]

Not to add to your future projects (!) but, yes, I think it would look better stained, especially butting up to that corner piece. That just looks weird. I don't think I would even try to strip it and stain it without taking it down. If you go that route, number each piece and location as you take it down, e.g. write #1 on the first piece and on the ceiling where it was covered by the piece. That way you'll know exactly how to reassemble it.

[Manalto]

But why would they paint it white in a room with all wood paneling?

Gina, I think the crown molding is white because someone probably slobbered when they painted the ceiling. If I'm right (and I'm not saying I am), it doesn't help much - the molding is still white.

[GinaC]

Not to add to your future projects (!) but, yes, I think it would look better stained, especially butting up to that corner piece. That just looks weird. I don't think I would even try to strip it and stain it without taking it down. If you go that route, number each piece and location as you take it down, e.g. write #1 on the first piece and on the ceiling where it was covered by the piece. That way you'll know exactly how to reassemble it.

That is a priceless tip, thank you!

[phil]

Im going to go out on a limb and say that crown is nothing original. why ? because it wasn't installed professionally. looks like a homeowner's work to me. not the builder. a pro would do coped joints or at least miters. Just because they did all the rooms means nothing.. now I could be wrong?

It might be a big corner round with that other strip below it adding together to form the shape.
It would bother me the way they meet and I'd pull it out myself ,now you could use some plaster and fill the hole and do your best to even things out in place and leave well enough alone. maybe if the molding were painted a different color than the ceiling it would look better?
what if you were to just paint it wood color? you can match the paint color to your other trim or the wall color and save creating a huge project?

I'm on the west coast. we have tall fir and cedar trees everywhere and we were a big lumber producer from the get go so I don't see a lot of pine around here. we do have pine, spruce etc and it's milled here for dimensional lumber but it's a white softwood and not stuff you'd use for finishing usually. in the midwest and the south there is more of that hard knotty pine. I don't know too much about it. oak was used too and it tends to be straight. poplar too maybe.
I only use fir in my house and everything around me is made of that. Different areas were influenced by lumber availability so if you look to other houses near you built in that time period you'll probably see trends. a lot of things like doors, moldings, baseboards were made of fir because it tends to be straight even grain. the knotty stuff bends and twists more so it is less suitable for moldings. maybe there were some really big trees back in the day that provided straighter lumber. Once rail lines got here we shipped a huge amount somewhere probably lots went tot he US so I would suspect places making doors and trim bought it. I think there was also lots in Ontario and parts of the US. northern Washington is much like here. In really early buildings I think it's a good bet the wood traveled less distance, rail changed the distribution.

[GinaC]

Thank you, Phil! I'm starting to think that the knotty pine solarium was added on later, but not much, since it still has 40's design elements, is part of the basement, and has all of the same windows and trim as the rest of the house. That may explain why the molding was done that way. Or maybe they just added that paneling later and couldn't be bothered to miter it.

It would certainly be easier to rip the crown molding all out and start fresh! Upstairs has the same crown molding design, beautifully mitered around the gabled ceilings. All painted white, which is fine with me. So if I rip out downstairs, at least I have the original upstairs.

Maybe I will just try to find something similar for downstairs and stain it a similar color as the baseboard and window trim. The living room has none, which I find odd, but they may have just ripped it out. I also want to add a picture rail in there anyway. Finish carpentry I've done before, so I'm not too fussed about it. I was just wondering what was original and why they would paint them white in some rooms when they left so much stained wood.

James' "oopsie" theory is probably the case.