Trim Ideas for Doorways

Standard Trim

• A standard door trim installation includes mitered corners with basic door casing. This is a simple but effective look that will give your installation job a professional finish. To get an even and level look to your mitered door trim, cut and install the piece across the top of the doorway first and make sure it's level. From there you can make the miter cuts on the side pieces and cut them at the bottom until they're a perfect fit.

Straight Corners

• Straight corners on a door trim project are not mitered. The top piece extends to the outer edges of the side pieces but does not meet at a corner miter cut. One of the popular looks for this kind of trim installation project is to use wide molding that looks like wood columns as the side pieces, with a decorative piece across the top. This molding is usually very wide and you can purchase the sides and top as a kit from your local home improvement warehouse. The larger top piece is referred to as an entablature and is common in colonial interior decor.

Blocks

• One alternative to miter or straight corners is using blocks for corners. Molding blocks are large and decorative pieces that allow you to make a corner without having to execute a miter cut. Block pieces allow you to use the same molding design for the top and the sides, as opposed to a straight corner which is done with sides that are different than the top.

Layers

• To get creative with your decorative door trim, consider using layers of molding designs. Use a piece of decorative crown molding as your trim centerpiece, then add smaller pieces of decorative quarter round or other molding pieces to create a wider trim in layers. The advantage to this approach is that you wind up with a unique look and you can keep adding as many layers as you want to make your door trim wider.