Hi all, we’re going to be building a 2800 s.f. home in Fall of ’04. My wife and I are trying to prepare for some of the basic decisions now. One thing we’re discussing is what sort of trim to use. It seems that most new homes around here (we’re in southeast MI; homes in the ~$500k range) have glossy white trim all over…maybe natural wood trim on stairs – but that’s about it. We’re from Wisconsin where all of our relatives – many of whom have built/G.C.’d their own homes use nothing but natural wood – usually oak. My retired father-in-law does a great job of sanding/staining/finishing trim, it looks absolutely gorgeous when he’s done.
But I’m wondering…is it going to be cheaper in the end to have the trim guy just use cheap wood trim and paint it white (like everyone else) or use nicer natural wood trim and save a few bucks by working on it w/my father-in-law? My builder/friend says it will be cheaper – by far – to use the painted white trim because a) it can be prepped much more quickly, b) the finish guy doesn’t have to be “quite” so precise w/the trim when putting it up because white “hides a lot” (and our builder is pretty anal but also fairly realistic) and c) the white stuff can be caulked where it meets the wall to hide any imperfections. Finally our builder says you wind up covering most window woodwork with coverings anyway.
My wife and I would sure like to have natural wood trim & doors, because it makes the whole house seem so much warmer. However we’d also like granite countertops, nice cabinets, nice wood flooring, etc. Something is probably going to have to give in order to meet our budget. What do you all think about the white vs. natural woodwork?
Thanks,
Rob
Replies
Hi Rob,
I'm doing the same thing you are...trying to make all the decisions I can upfront before I head to the architects and starting building. Been debating this same question: painted interior trim vs. wood stained trim.
I've lived in both types of trimmed homes and like both. It's just a matter of taste. However, like you, I'm probably going to go with the pre-primed popular trim because that is the look I want this go around AND it will be a cost saver so I can have those nice cabinets, countertops and appliances. White trim hides a lot of sins and can be changed in the future much easier than stained trim.
My house will have the white exterior doors and I can order them pre-primed white on the interior as well. This way I can get the look of the exterior doors the same on both sides. The white exterior clad doors/windows should be less maintenance costs in my retirement years.
Maybe I've been watching too much HGTV lately, but it seems that white/ivory trim is very popular and does offer a lot of design choices for the walls.
Good luck with your home building project!!
CATinGAmtns
Although it is true that stain grade trim can be more expensive to install, the notion that paint grade trim is lower quality is false. Properly installed paint grade trim, in a house as valuable as yours, should not be relying on fillers and caulking to hide things any more than stain grade.
It is true that it caulks to the wall easily for that 'extruded house' look, but it still needs to be fit. Properly framed with well hung doors, stain grade trim should go on fine.
If you plan to use MDF type trim, beware the off gasing and possible allergic reactions it has be known to cause. Finger joint cheap primed trim will look just like it sounds. I don't think this is what you want. If you use paint grade, use solid wood such as poplar. It will hold up and look better than the cheap stuff.
Another consideration is the look of the trim. Square jointed trim styles such as side casings and head casings seperated by a protruding bead or with heads a bit thicker are easier to fit than mitered corners. Crafteman style homes use this 'off set' ie no meeting surfaces flush, to great advantage.
Is what you're asking, Is the material and labor cost to install but not finish wood trim much less or more in cost than materials and labor to install and finish painted white trim?
I don't have a direct answer. But, for estimating material cost, I built a 2300 square foot home with wood trim everywhere. There was just over 1000 linear feet of trim. My impression from watching the men work was that the fussiness needed for wood trim did not seem to eat up much extra time.
On my home, the crew fitted all of the trim, then took it down and sent it to a furniture finisher along with all the interior doors, door frames, and window jambs. Finishing cost $4200. I don't know the carpenter's cost for this labor.
I want to say, though, that wood trim looks beautiful. Three years after building my dream home I lost my job and had to move. In looking for homes, all the new homes are white. All white. White everywhere. The walls, the vinyl floors, the electrical stuff, bathroom fixtures, cabinets, knobs, doors, windows, light fixtures, shelving. No color, not even bone, nor almond, nor even off white. Just white, white, white. It's hideous.
So, I admire you for considering wood. I had wood trim throughout, natural cherry cabinets, birch doors, cedar front door, oak & zebrawood foyer closet doors, oak & zebrawood bar counter with cherry base, wood windows, cherry-patterned laminate floor in the kitchen, and lots of hand made ceramic tile in rich earth tones. The fixtures were tan, neutral enough to decorate around, but lots nicer on the eye than white. The house got rave reviews from neighbors and guests, and sold quickly in a slow market.
I was able to afford this two ways. First, I'm handy, so I built the kitchen cabinets and layed all the tile myself. Second, I did not waste any money on items that no one would see or that I didn't care about. Bathroom vanities were wood, but standard stock. Light fixtures in the bedrooms and hallways were $5 each. (The expensive ones were only in the public rooms.) Shower stalls were standard. No fancy hot tub. No Sub-Zero fridge. Brought my 15 year old washer and dryer with me from the old house. Saved $500 by skipping the convection feature on the oven. No sheetrock on garage walls. No unused rooms in the floor plan (no dining room, no second living/family room, no mystery room made up of leftover space the architect wasn't smart enough to eliminate). No air conditioning. Bedrooms small -- the second and third bedrooms were only 9 x 12, plenty large for anyone. No drapes anywhere, just blinds where needed for privacy. No complicated roof or bump outs. Rectangular foundation each for the house, garage, and shop with no ins and outs. Unpainted raw stairs to the basement.
You are very wise to begin so early to make decisions. It's vital to make decisions early about anything that's a long-lead item. If you decide you want something the contractor can't get in time to meet the schedule, it will cost you in lost efficiency. And change orders can really blow the budget, so changing your mind can be expensive. It's tons of fun and I wish you the best.
Some of this has to depend on how you plan to decorate; and, what's considered "in" in your area. Around here: colonial painted trim is the standard; you see some rooms, even whole houses trimed in stained oak (still colonial profile), and it has a certain rustic charm; Victorian is nice on a big house with the right colours and furniture; but, colonial is what sells here. Go with your neighbours have, but do it well.
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
We just added a 900 sq ft. addition to our house. Moved the kitchen and dining room into it. I did the cabinets in curly maple, with cherry (fake) floors. So we decided to trim the dining room in cherry and the kitchen and other room (all windows 60" tall) with maple. I milled, finished and hung the trim myself. The materials are more expensive without a doubt. The installation is not that much more difficult than paint grade, though you really want those mitres tight since there is no putty or caulking. I built the window frames (45 mitre picture frames style) in the shop and then installed them as a unit around the windows. That way I could get a very good joint. The real kicker was finishing all that trim. Sanding out milling marks, then multiple coats of varnish is very time consuming and had I not done it myself would probably have been cost prohibitive in our case. That said, it is really beautiful stuff and I will be replacing the trim in all the "public' rooms with similar varnished hardwood as soon as I get the time. Hope this helps.
Mike
Painted or stained is your personal choice. We don't see stained much around here and stained homes may not sell as quickly here in the SE USA. One person might say "makes it feel warm" while another says, "makes it too dark". On the other hand, I know there are areas of the country that only do stained. And don't get me wrong - I'd love to have an office room with all stained build-in bookcases, panel mold heavy crown, solid wood doors, etc, etc...
You say "My retired father-in-law does a great job of sanding/staining/finishing trim, it looks absolutely gorgeous when he's done." Are you insinuating that he would do the stained finish in your new home? Weather painting or stained applying finish to a home is a BIG job. Depending on the amount of trim, it may be too big for you FIL, or at the very least you may need to add another 2 weeks to a month or so to your construction schedule. The added time could eat up some/all of the cost savings in the form of interest payment on your construction loan especially if he is not up to working 8x5 weeks.
Just another opinion...
Edited 1/4/2004 9:32:54 AM ET by DIRISHINME
Thanks Matt. Yes, my FIL would do the work (with me helping after work/weekends). He's done this numerous times on houses up to 4000 s.f. - ours will be ~2800 s.f. I guess I'll cost it out both ways to see what the material cost differences are, the other poster mentioned it could be a difference between $50 and $125 for a masonite door vs. wood. The more I think about it the more I'd like all wood in the house, however budget constraints are going to mean something has to give.
Thanks,
Rob
Rob,
Just to clarify..... that $125 per door figure is for the stuff at HD... pine veneer, prehung.
The doors I'm looking at are really more like $175 or $200 for a 32" prehung. That price is for a solid beech door. Maple, oak, or other hardwood doors should be in that ball park as well. You could go poplar though, and that would be a little less expensive but then you have the problem of less than spectacular color, grain, surface smoothness, and staining. Slabs are of course less expensive but then there's the time to hang.
Hope this doesn't scare you off of stained wood. It is a serious commitment of dollars to choose stained wood.
Rob Kress
i also want to weigh in here, there is beauty in function, and there is a functional reason for painting the trim. it will hold up better, and will refinish better. it will be a little more practical. if you really love the look of the wood, and that is what the design is calling for to compliment the rest of the scheme i don't think its a bad idea.
my wife insisted on having one of those apron front old farm house style sinks, it was over $1100 retail, and in our two sink kitchen it hardly ever gets used. the stainless sink in the island is bullet proof, and since you don't have to worry about it thats the one that gets the use.
i don't know what your neighborhood is like there, it sounds upscale from the price, but what i like are the classics. i like for a house to look like it could have been built 100 years ago. you can still have all the modern conveniences, and it doesn't have to be totally authentic to look really good, and it will never go out of style-and appeal to the most people if you ever decide to sell. now if that doesn't fit the neighborhood thats another thing....
I think that whatever you decide to go with, do your budget as if you were using (sub)contractors to do the work, and then whatever you save by DIY, can be applied to other areas in which there will be overages - which unfortunately is inevitable.Matt
So, I gather from what you have said that you are not functioning as owner/builder, but are having a GC build it for you. And whether you go painted or stained, your builder is only responsible for trimming out, not finishing. You (with help from FIL) are doing all sand, prep, fill, and finish, whether it be painted or clearcoat over stain.
Right?
Can your FIL deliver a satin-smooth paint job on doors and trim, just as he can a stain and clearcoat?
I was in the millwork biz from coast to coast, and found the preferences for paint versus stain to be highly regional, with a big pocket of the stain fanciers in the Wisconsin to Nebraska corridor. Most everywhere else, paint is preferred, except for on styles such as cabin, rustic, ski lodge, craftsman, and some others.
Unless you are absolute on your preference for stained wood trim, consider an all-painted scheme, and use solid-core masonite doors, in one of the many paneled choices (6 pnl, 4 pnl, 2 pnl, 2 pnl w arch, etc.). Solid core doors are as heavy or heavier than wood, and give a high-end "feel" when they swing and close, plus when knocked on. Builder cost is about $100 per door, prehung in a frame.
Where you are, the door and trim shops probably all sell primed fingerjointed poplar trim, but if your builder can get the trim of your choice in primed MDF, do it instead of the poplar. You won't see any telegraphing finger joints.
And by all means, choose your color schemes wisely. Drag out all the books from the library on color and painting and interior decorating. Get all the brochures from the paint companies that show combinations for walls, trim, accents. Martha Stewart has a great bunch of brochures that show painted trim and wall schemes. If you can get really good professional help from an interior designer or colorist, do it if the cost seems reasonable to you. In paint, one color costs the same as another, and with a really well-done color scheme, you will be very very happy.
With the suggested doors and primed paint grade trim materials, you will see a real cost savings versus the same job in stain grade wood. Put the savings to work elsewhere.
Use the "warm" tones of natural wood as accents to the color scheme. Red oak handrails, stair treads, and floors can all look wonderful with painted trim. Accent a cozy dropped ceiling in an alcove with a wood-plank look. Do coat hooks in mudrooms and closets in shaker-style wood pegs, stained and clearcoated. Choose cabinetry for kitchens and baths and elsewhere in natural wood with semitransparent antiqued glazed finishes.
Natural wood is a design scheme element, just like color and texture are. Choose wisely.
A couple just moved into a custom home nearby, and they were in love with the look and feel of natural wood. Pine was used everywhere, absolutely everywhere, inside and out. Every room, closet, hallway, bathroom, everything inside, was done in 1x6 t&g v-joint pine, with knots. The place is an abomination. Everywhere you go, you feel like you are in a casket.
Keep on researching, but here at Breaktime is not really the best place to go. Visit high end design galleries in your area, go and see some expensive model homes, ask some realtors for their opinions, get to know your new neighbors and see what they have, buy magazines, borrow them, read them at newsstands, and look, look, look, everywhere.
Don't stop with the doors and trim and colors of the house. Consider how the whole thing will go. All your best furniture and accent pieces . . . how will they go with color or wood? What will you do for window coverings? Bed coverings, upholstery?
When Frank Lloyd Wright did a really full-service job for a client, he did everything inside. Everything. Furniture, colors, teapots, sculpture, rugs, etc. Every last thing contributes to the composition as a whole.
It's funny you mention Wisconsin - that's where we're from and that's where my relatives all have natural wood trim. Again I must admit that I really - really! - like that look and feel. One brother-in-law does his own woodworking and he did a very tasteful job of putting up oak crown molding in certain rooms along w/the beautiful wood trim in the rest of the home. It looks great and feels like a very comfortable home.
Upfront we're probably going to paint the whole place white and do it ourselves. Then, as we start to fully furnish and decorate it (my wife is pretty darn good at this) then I'll go back over and paint each room to our liking.
Thanks, Rob
Rob,
I do a lot of trim carpentry work and my boss and I take the same amount of time to do painted trim as we do for stained trim. A bad joint on trim work can be seen no matter how it is finished.
Painted/stained trim is one of the things that drives me crazy about todays track construction. I walk into so many $500K plus houses with prestained oak trim and painted white hollow core masonite doors. And the people who pay for this are thinking that their house is much nicer than the neighbors cause they paid that extra $2000 to get the stained trim in the dining room. To me it all looks cheap.
I like continuity. I am building a home for myself now in the arts and crafts style. All my trim and doors will be stained along with wood floors. It is way more expensive than doing painted trim and doors (even with me doing the work). The big kicker is the doors. I don't like the mix of stained trim with painted doors so my doors have to be wood of some sort. That takes the door price from somewhere near $50 each to over $125 each (and I have a lot of doors). So it adds up quickly.
Be careful about estimating the time to finish the trim yourself. Everything takes about 3 or 4 times longer than you expect (heck, maybe even 7 or 8 times longer). If that will affect your move in or other aspects of the project, you need to plan accordingly.
But in the end, there really is nothing like a whole house finished in stained trim. I think it is warmer and more beautiful. Others may disagree.
Good luck
Rob Kress
Go with stained wood if that's your personal choice. I do not charge any more to trim stained hardwoods than painted wood. The material costs would be more expensive for hardwood. As far as caulking the trim to the walls are concerned , you certainly can caulk hardwood trim the same as painted. You have to be neater with the caulking, even tape off the trim if your caulking skills are questionable.
Personally if costs are a factor, I would put plastic laminate tops in for now instead of granite, you can replace them in the future a lot cheaper than replacing trim that you don't like.
mike
Am a painting contractor(25 yrs.) and the only way to go is natural.Or like most of my clients I will come back when the paint looks dingy and charge to paint it again.Don't tell them i said so I will be out of business! lol