Trimmed Out

Trim is what makes a room look finished. It covers the gaps where walls meet floors, doors and stairs, and it’s judged on how cleanly every joint closes.

Wainscotting on a stair is harder than on a flat wall: every panel has to follow the angle of the stairs, and the mouldings have to turn cleanly where the slope meets the landing. Each panel here is framed in an applied moulding with concave notched corners, laid out so the panels step up with the stairs, under a decorative chair rail that climbs the stair and levels off at the top.

The second photo shows the everyday side of the work: an interior door hung square in its opening, wrapped in wide, flat casing, with tall baseboard running along the walls and meeting the casing with a tight joint. Painted white, it gives the room crisp lines that read from across the space.