Wall trim molding - $118 for beautiful architectural detail

Adding character to your home can be as simple and inexpensive as adding wall trim molding to create a stunning accent wall.

You’ve seen my DIY wainscoting and accent walls in my dining room and bedroom at our old house.

Well, this house needed some of that architectural character as well – wouldn’t you agree?

Yes, I’ve been sleeping on my mattress on the floor for the past few months because I hadn’t decided what I wanted to do to my bedroom and I didn’t want to assemble, disassemble, then reassemble my king-size bed.

The amazing Maria @mjrinteriors , came up with a game plan and I edited it ever-so-slightly.

Maria suggested vertical shiplap wall, but I had an inspo picture I couldn’t get out of my head:

I looked up options and found this on Etsy if you don’t want to DIY wall trim molding yourself:

This is certainly the way to go if you don’t own a table or mitre saw, but since I do, I decided it was something I could make myself.

I started out by measuring my room and deciding how many rectangles I wanted across the back wall.

Someone once told me that design is about geometry. Repeat patterns in consistent ways to create an aesthetically appealing space.

With that in mind I decided to go with 1 ½” wide strips of molding, spaced 1 ½” between layers and 3″ between sets. This creates a geometrically appealing layout AND makes hanging your wall trim molding a BREEZE! (You can see I played with 3″ spacing in the rectangles on the far left, but visually it didn’t appeal to me.)

Now trim molding can get expensive, so I looked for another option that was more cost effective…

Baseboards!!

Yes! At $55 CDN for a 10 pack – this worked perfectly!

I calculated that I’d need 17 boards, ripped down to 1 ½” wide for all of my wall trim molding.

Using my table saw, I ran each board over to create three 1 ½” lengths (per board).

From there, I cut the longest pieces (70 ½” x 8) first, then went on to the next shortest etc.

Set your mitre saw to a 45° angle and cut the ends to length (perpendicular to each other) so that the longest side is at the listed measurement.

My wall trim molding cut list:

(8) 70 ½”
(8) 64 ½”
(8) 58 ½”
(16) 37 ¾”
(8) 31 ¾”
(8) 25 ¾”
(8) 19″

Since the baseboard was pre-primed, I added a coat of paint to each board before assembling…

until I ran out of garage space. Then I just left them white.

Paint your walls

I suggest painting your walls before you start attaching the mouldings. This will make the final coat of paint so much easier and you are much less likely to get stuck with drool marks from dripping trim pieces.

This paint colour is from Benjamin Moore and is called Ebony King.

Two coats in their Aura formula and the coverage was excellent.

Hanging the wall trim moulding

I assembled the large rectangles (70 ½” x 37 ¾”) using wood glue and brad nails. This is optional – it made hanging the first 4 easier, but they aren’t difficult to hang either way.

With a laser level set to 3″ from the side wall and measuring down 3″ from the ceiling, I nailed the largest rectangle in place using 1″ pin nails.

Note: I did NOT glue my mouldings to the wall so that removal (should the mood strike) would not involve re-mudding and sanding the entire wall for damage.

Once the outer rectangle is hung and level, the rest of the rectangles can be inserted using scrap cut-offs as spacers!

One and a half inch spacer between the sides and top and bottom of the outer rectangle. (always check for level before nailing in place)

Then two spacers between the larger rectangles. No math, very little measuring – just spacers and a level to make sure everything stays on-course.

The board beneath the large rectangles was made up of scrap pieces and spaced 3″ below the large rectangles.

Three inches below that are the smaller rectangles – again, spaced 3″ apart from each other – and plum/level with the upper trim work.

I used wood filler to fill in all of the nail holes and mitred corner seams.

At this point a professional would have used trim caulking to fill in any gaps between the mouldings and the wall. I was very lucky in that the walls in our new house are pretty flat, so I didn’t have any gaps that a final coat of paint didn’t fill in.

Sand off your wood filler/caulking and then paint.