Before The Architect - Wood Millwork Moulding

Wood Millwork

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HOME INTERIOR DESIGN, WOOD MILLWORK MOULDING

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Wood Millwork Designing

Introduction to wood millwork moulding

This e-article is about an home interior design, wood millwork mould designing that Before The Architect can pursue with clients: bringing a home interior together with wood mould designs.

Whereas, any home interior style can benefit from this interior design idea, this custom home designer prefers to present Craftsman Style herewith for its popularity with clients, adaptability of format, and simplicity of layout.

That which follows on wood mould designing is excerpted from extensive correspondence with clients who are intent on a Craftsman Style interior to their custom home.

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THE ESSENCE

Whassup at the heart of this wood mould interior designing idea?

Thematic. Present the space, not the wood mould trim, i.e., a space with wood mould trim and not wood mould trim with space. Present similar spaces – notably, community and private – within each similarly.

Consistent. Select or form a home interior design style and stick to it. A single home design style. Whimsy-lite counts, whimsy-heavy confuses. Surprise counts, too. Shock does not count.

ARTS & CRAFTS MOVEMENT AND DESIGN STYLE

Comment: This brief digression is intended to assure that all are designing on the same page home designing page.

The Arts & Crafts Movement bore home design styles of individual distinction

Craftsman Style, or American Craftsman Style – The most prolific of both exterior and interior markers of common man, materials, and methods in celebration of folk, or country, culture and of nature. Earth tone paint, lighter stains, and often boldly colored tile palettes, vernacular luminaires, hammered and burnished metalware, stained glass, etc. are Craftsman Style indicia

Mission Style – Really bifurcated, with one – the original – branch welling design reminiscent of Franciscans' Spanish monasteries and the other, a simple, heavy style of exterior design and, especially, of rectilinear, unornamented furniture proffered most notably by G. Stickley and inspired by the original Mission Style. Of interest, as irregular and humbly simple as much of Craftsman Style offers, geometric regularity and ornate embellishments (albeit, in the latter instance, selectively and most specifically glazes) characterize Mission Style.

Prairie Style – Of importance to this custom home design, the vertical as well as the horizontal are emphasized along with natural and geometric motifs in decor

PAINT OR STAIN

On community space walls and ceilings, paint generally rules with few exceptions, including but not limited to staining

An accent of a feature or element not otherwise readily acquired visually, e.g., some decorative trusses and ridge beams

An interest in making a space seem smaller or more intimate, as an alcove or niche or passageway partially separated from community space

An interest in making a space more important than that for which it might otherwise be taken, e.g., L0 spaces

An interest in highlighting what can be an abundance of wood trim

Comment: Even without regard to the Craftsman Style inclination to lighter stains, to do otherwise, that is, dark-stain wood overall, even in well-lit spaces, can weigh heavily and distract.

In private spaces on walls and ceiling, paint still generally rules, but with more exceptions, including but not limited to acculturated acceptability, e.g., study, library, nook, sitting room space in a private suite, in order to further cue privacy, functional distinction, etc.

There is aesthetic latitude with staining on two bases –

The lighter the stain, the lighter the visual weight

The more illumination, especially natural light, in a space, the more leeway to stain without penalty of visual burden

Top coats shall be satin, except interior ceiling shall be flat

No filler, faux finishes, e.g., graining, marbleizing, etc., shall be applied

Comment: So much for generalizations of conventional theory and the misguided practice of many. How about Craftsman Style practice?

        Craftsman Style paint and stain can vary from one feature or element to another or not, though at least some stain – lighter stain - appears to prevail in authentic examples with few exceptions.

        The Missus is partial to honey-colored stains. So it was with the Craftsman Style and staining, as one among several recognizable reactions of design in revolution to the dark-to-ebonized Victorian coatings to wood.

        Thus spaketh The Missus …

        If you stick to lighter stain – honey-colored – and lighter-colored paints, you'll do just fine. That will keep the home's interior from feeling like a cloak.

	White is not generally regarded as an earth tone; whereas, muted off-whites are. Please see, among others, http://ideas.houseinprogress.net/archives/000521.html and http://www.aspencarpetdesigns.com/Decor_2.htm
	Paint-ready trim can be much less expensive than stain-ready trim, though sometimes more labor-intensive in order to close shade lines and countersets

Comment: Please coat with nonoil-based materials – they're not prone to yellow over time as are the oil-based, more noticeably so in lighter hues.

WOOD MOULD DESIGNING TRIM STYLE

Comment: Some pass off Craftsman Style morphing to the Classical as a trim style. While insinuating itself in latter-day Craftsman Style, there is, to this custom home designer's understanding, nothing Classical about Craftsman Style trim style; the notion is antithetical. In fact, the Arts & Crafts Movement was founded in explicit opposition to Classicism, especially Victorian Classicism. Hand of the craftsman. Hand of the Craftsman. Not turn of the router. Not twist of the lathe. Yeesh.

Craftsman Style's interior trim style, indeed, the whole-house sense of it physically and philosophically, is simple design, hand-craft, and materials of the locale

There's nothing simple about most Colonial trim

Please note the frequent absence of mitered trim in Craftsman Style trim applications, especially casings … mostly butt-joints and selective returns

Comment: American Piedmont Style [this custom home's exterior design], while semi-Franglish, bears Craftsman Style lineage in its absence of Victorian anything, of almost anything Classical, that is, its simplicity and, generally, its asymmetry. That's not to say it's a pure design form, not with the mixed gable and hip, high-pitched roofs; however, much of its charm appears in the high-minded hips giving way to more common gables the closer one gets to ground level.

INTERIOR DOORS

Several presentations can be sought out and sorted in Web searches for Craftsman Style interior doors, among them Wood Harbor's Kendleton Series at http://www.woodharbor.com/products/doorBrowser/cabinetry.php?RUN_TYPE=LIST_PANEL&CATEGORY_ID=4&STYLE_ID=77

EXTERIOR DOORS

Several presentations can be sought out and sorted in Web searches for Craftsman Style exterior doors, among them http://www.craftsmandoors.com/models.phtml?style_id=1&model_type=1&numdoors=10&doornum=5

Comment: In the opinion of these custom home designers, the less the opportunity for intrusive view the better. Therefore, sidelites are not imperative. Quarter lites seem more appropriate. In either case, they should be translucent.

RAILINGS AND BALUSTERS AND NEWEL

May be ornate, articulated, but rarely.

Newels may be excepted

Style rules, especially for balusters and newel

Railings can be THE test of wood craftsmanship

WAINSCOTING

Comment: The visual appeal in greater heights of wainscoting presentation is the well-proportioned emphasis on verticality.

AG thinks that emphatic verticality arises from the squatish feel to Craftsman Style interiors – a natural outcome to the common man, materials, and methods of low-pitch roofs and low ceilings.

The vertical vision must be carefully designed in higher-ceilinged spaces.

OTHER

Transoms, kitchens, baths, fireplaces, ceiling coffers, exposed beams, casings, plinth blocks and rosettes, interior columns, chair rail, baseboard, panels, etc. – all addressed in related correspondence of text and illustrations.

Too masculine, eh? That's Craftsman Style.

You gotta dig like a mole to find the feminine in any of it.

Who ever heard of W. Morris' wife (Jane) or G. Stickley's (Eda Ann Simmons)?

Comment: Well, there's good news and bad news to this chapter about trim in residential design. Let's do bad, first: Craftsman Style is masculine; Craftsman Style is, in this custom home designer's opinion, the transitional design style from Traditional to Modern, displaying some of both.

Cometh the good: the Craftsman Style didn't sprout sui generis – there's baggage precedent and antecedent

Comment: That does mean to take the edge off rectilinearity so emphatic in Craftsman Style – round-over edges as though hand-crafted, reveal and return head casing, return stools, vault a ceiling and trim its angularity, set a simple curvilinear design to corner block, drape backbands over head casing in the Roman style as a label a/k/a, among others, hoodmold, etc. Simple. Clean. Uncluttered. Just the sort of design that cannot help but happen in transition.

These days, in this custom home designer's opinion and work, that presentation rightfully regains popularity across design styles, including but not limited to French broadly and French Country particularly (not as though French Country wasn't spectral unto itself) and English Manor House.

. . . . .

Comment: The Missus suggests that you mock-up a wood trim sample (very professional approach … with staining, too) or two or more, especially of the crown, for example, trying the sample on ceiling-wall joints if you can access similar-height spaces to this enterprise.

SORTING AND SIZING TRIM TO LEVELS

Comment: Proportioning between levels and sorting within levels can add immeasurably to the pleasures of residence. Recognized and appreciated regularity in artful presentation is devoutly to be wished and not often designed-in.

BEGIN SORTING

The interior design ideas for wood trim in this custom home plan developed 13 trim packages, repeated in small part below –

PACKAGE A: CORNICE, CHAIR RAIL #1 TO 3LF AFF, BASEBOARD W/ SHOE

PACKAGE B CORNICE, CHAIR RAIL #1 TO 3LF AFF W/ WAINSCOT BEL, BASEBOARD W/ SHOE

PACKAGE C CORNICE, BASEBOARD W/ SHOE, NOTING IN GABLED CEILING SPACE THE CORNICE APPLIES ONLY TO THE 2 WALLS OF OPPOSING FOLDS . . .

PACKAGE L: CORNICE, CHAIR RAIL #3 TO 3LF W/ WAINSCOT #2 BEL, BASEBOARD W/ SHOE OR STRINGER CASING

PACKAGE M: 5LI CROWN OVER 10LI FRIEZE OR FRIEZE FROM HEAD CASING TO SOFFIT AS INDICATED OPTIONALLY

Comment: The signed numbers refer to drawings thereunder of dimensioned and annotated sections in elevation of each trim piece.

Comment: Other spaces got other trim packages.

Comment: In sorting interior design ideas for wood trim, please note that a trim package varies from space to space on a given level.

FINISH SORTING

Now, Before The Architect relates a wood trim package to by-level floor plans, as selected here from L0's Finishing Schedule, including all manner of codified finishes along with trim –

Excerpted Finishing Schedule, Presenting Trim Package Coding on Right-Hand Column

Comment: To the extent that species vary in the same space, please seriously consider test samples for staining. Real pros can work wonders in both matching up and contrasting. Take your time.

SIZING

Whereas, sorting trim packages distributes different packages on a given level, sizing is level-dependent, i.e., on a given level, a given size fits all

Let's take cornice. Here's the basic (for right-angles meets of wall and ceiling) cornice profile for this custom home in interior Craftsman Style, selected from a sheet full of similar sections for wood mould designing throughout this 11000SF home.

Cornice Trim, Private and Community Spaces, Three-Level Distinctions

SCOPE OF APPLICATION

Note well that there's

One section in elevation each for community and private space on any level and that

Sizes of major pieces progressively vary with level – largest on L0 (where the ceilings are highest, which ceilings progressively lower at L1 and L2

Before The Architect similarly varies all other wood trim members in size by level and certain other trim features by community versus private.

In this custom home enterprise, mouldings vary respectively for the gamut of applications -

Head Casing

Corbel

Lower (smaller) Chair Rail

Higher (larger) Chair Rail

Plinth Blocks and Rosettes

Baseboard and Shoes

Major Ceiling Coffers

Minor Ceiling Coffers

Cornice in Wall-Vault Pitch

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