What is the difference between door casing and door trim

They add texture, depth, and warmth, creating the illusion of space to the drabbest and small spaces. However, designers highly advise that you keep the trim consistent from room to room and with your exterior style for flow and continuity. For instance, you should apply the most intricate and expansive trim to the interior side of the front entry door; the next widest trim goes on the interior side of other large exterior doors, like french and sliding doors.

Scale the interior trim down for small exterior doors. Finally, use the same size trim on interior doors and windows. Farmhouse style door casings give your home a cozy feel.

Timeless farmhouse style includes simple, clean lines, with little to no ornamentation on the boards. To add character and dimension to a room, try whitewashing, staining, or applying a dark color to your farmhouse style door casings. Craftsman door casings produce simple yet exciting details that add a purposeful style to your home — representing the signature elements of British Arts and Crafts architecture.

The sturdy quality and handcrafted pieces of the craftsman style door casings also play a significant role in complementing and unifying the exterior elements. To add depth and texture to your craftsman home, paint the door casings a creamy neutral tone or dark color. Minimally designed door trim produces a simple, finished, and clean look without overwhelming the space. Minimal trim works effectively with modern or industrial decor styles, or in informal areas, to create a sophisticated and open feel to contemporary rooms.

Colonial-style door casings combine timeless simplicity and rich details, enhancing the feeling of coziness and comfort in your home. Often featuring elegant, simple beads small indented lines and cavetto concave shapes and curves in their design, they can make a low-ceiling room feel more feminine and voluminous.

Builders or DIYers can connect the short head casing ends to the top of the two side casings by either butted or mitered joints. Butted joints connect two flat surfaces at 90 degrees, typically with both glue and nails. Traditionally, butt joints connect flat board casings, with the head casing sitting on top of the side casings. Architects often opt for butted joints when designing homes with high ceilings because butted joints allow for custom above-door designs with intrinsic and detailed head casings.

Decorative corner blocks can add even more interest and character. A similar type of trim is the wall frame, which is usually comprised of four trim pieces forming a square or rectangular shape. Wall frames are for the most part decorative. Trim is also often classified based on the material it is made from.

While wood has traditionally been used and is still one of the most widely used trim materials, today there are many other options to choose from. Which type of trim material you use can vary depending on the budget you have in mind and the type of finish you want to achieve. If, for example, you want a more natural finish or want to stain the trim, then bare wood is your best option. On the other hand, if you are planning to paint the trim, it may make sense to look at primed wood or other options that require less time and labor to install.

If you want your trim or molding to reveal the natural look of wood, then bare wood is your best option. It will allow you to stain the trim and retain the natural characteristics of wood. Bare wood trim is available in a wide range of wood species, including poplar, pine, fir, oak, and aspen.

Each has its own unique appearance and can vary in terms of ease of installation. If you are planning to paint the trim, then it makes sense to use primed wood to make installation more efficient and save time. Primed wood is generally made from less expensive wood, making it a less expensive option.

A less expensive alternative to natural wood is wood composite. Made from wood fibers that are bound together with resins and finished with wax. Wood composite trim can be factory primed and has a similar appearance to wood. It can be used in both interior or exterior applications. Medium-density fiberboard MDF is often used for trim in interior settings. The least expensive option, MDF can be painted to achieve the desired finish.

However, it does not perform well in moist or damp spaces and should not be used in exterior settings. It can work in permanently dry spaces but is not recommended at floors or around windows and exterior doors due to moisture. Another inexpensive material which can be used for trim is polystyrene.

It is made from rigid polystyrene foam and can be painted with water-based paint. It tends to be less durable than other trim materials. However, polystyrene trim does have a few advantages. It is very light and easy to cut, even with a knife and can be installed with a back adhesive eliminating the need for nailing to the wall surface.

If you are looking for a more durable, but less expensive alternative to wood, polyurethane can be a good option. It usually comes ready to be painted. The trim around a door frame—also known as doorway casing—is installed first and foremost to conceal unsightly construction gaps left between the frame and the drywall. Whether you want to install new doorway molding or update your existing one, start with this guide to doorway casing.

The thinner edge will be installed toward the inside of the door frame to reduce bulk in the doorway, while the thicker outside edge matches the depth of the base trim to create a cohesive threshold. When setting out to design doorway casing, homeowners will find a wide variety of options, from simple trim with a completely flat surface to more elaborate and often wider options with intricate moldings and protrusions.

Two major considerations when finding a favorite style are joint choice and sizing. What you use to build doorway casing is just as important to your style and your budget as the joint design and trim width. For homeowners and homebuilders, the choice comes down to these types of casing.

Looking to save some money on labor to invest more in the materials themselves?