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Types of Interior Trim

It’s important to know what types are available. Here’s your basic glossary:

• Crown Molding: An angled piece of trim that covers the corner between the wall and the ceiling. Crown molding requires mitered cuts in the corners and comes in many profiles. Generally speaking, wider pieces of crown molding are more formal, while smaller pieces with fewer ridges and curves are more casual and modern.

• Door Casing: This trim creates a frame around a doorway and hides the framing pieces and shims that were used to install the door. This trim can be mitered at the corners or used with square blocks and straight-cut pieces. 

• Window Casing: Like door casing, window casing frames windows and hides any gaps around them. In the past, window trim also hid the inner workings of the sash weights, but today’s trim is mostly used for decoration. Window and door casing often coordinate, though the proportions may vary depending on the size of the windows.

• Baseboard: This trim piece bridges the gap between the wall and the floor. In very modern spaces, it could be as simple as a piece of quarter round; for homes with high ceilings, baseboards are often several inches high.

• Chair Rail: This piece of trim is hung horizontally on the wall at the height of a chair back. Originally used to protect plaster from gouges and dings as chairs were pushed back against the wall, today it’s a decorative touch most often used in formal dining rooms or as a transition piece around wainscoting.

• Wainscoting: This decorative paneling is used on the lower half of walls and is often painted or stained to contrast with the wall above. Wainscoting was originally used as a way to waterproof the lower half of plaster walls, but today it is purely decorative .Beadboard is one popular type of wainscoting that has vertical ridges, or beads.

• Panel Molding: Panel molding are ridged trim pieces that can be used to create frames. These frames are then placed on the wall to simulate raised panels — often as wainscoting or around a fireplace or other focal point. Panel molding can be used to create an endless array of patterns on the wall or even the ceiling.  

• Shiplap Paneling: Wide, flat boards that lock together are placed horizontally to form shiplap paneling. This style of paneling is very popular and is often used to create a rustic accent wall. In the South, shiplap was often used instead of plaster to create interior walls.