How We Chose the Millwork in Our Mid-Century Red House

Our Red House project has us flexing our creative muscles and stepping outside our comfort zone! Today we’re breaking down the process of selecting simple, minimal millwork that suits the home’s age.

Our Red House project has turned a huge corner! Bathroom tile, hardwood flooring, priming, painting and millwork are all complete! We’ve even installed a freestanding gas fireplace – a first for us that has inspired the entire layout of the main living space. With all of these pivotal elements complete, we’ve received a handful of questions about how we selected one of the most variable elements of any home – the trim and millwork.

Bucking the Trend

Big, chunky millwork is very on-trend right now in the design/DIY world. Large, ornate baseboards and casing, often coupled with wainscoting or wall paneling are featured all over the internet in nearly every style of home. While big millwork and paneling are design features that we love and have utilized in our other homes, it’s simply not the right fit for this little 1957 gem. This clean, simple millwork with no ornamentation will accent the windows and the views, rather than the casing itself.

Inspiration

In order to select the exact trim profiles, we looked no further than the existing millwork in the home! While the trim had become a bit of a patchwork over the years, there were certainly areas where the original millwork was still present and in good condition. The big wood feature walls, for example, retain all of their original millwork around both the horizontal pair of windows and the big ‘6 pack’ of windows on the right. The profile of this stained wood millwork is often referred to as Ranch style trim. It’s simple and clean to allow for a tidy frame around the windows, making them the stars of the show. We did our best to mimic what was in place already and found nearly identical millwork readily available.

Bringing the Outdoors In

One of the main characteristics of Midcentury design is bringing the outdoors in. By adding windows and doors throughout the home, our goal from the beginning has been to do exactly that. The property that this little home sits on is very special to us, and we’d like to be able to appreciate it from as many angles as possible. Wherever we’ve installed new windows and doors, we’ve selected the slimmest profile possible to maximize the window openings themselves. We think that selecting this equally slim, simple millwork will allow what’s outside the windows to be the focal point.

Skipping the Shoe Molding

Shoe molding, which is the thin, flexible trim that bridges the gap between the baseboard and floor boards, serves a purpose. Often, the tall, rigid nature of baseboards makes them difficult to mate seamlessly to the floor. The shoe molding retains flexibility to match the contours of the flooring and close the gap for a seamless look. Because our hardwood flooring was newly installed, we were able to skip the shoe molding all together to keep things clean and sleek. Simple baseboard, simple door and window molding. That’s it. We want this home to feel like a breath of fresh air. Clean, simple, and tidy while maintaining a sense of openness and natural light.

Wall & Trim Paint Colors

For this home, we loved the idea of a subtle version of contrast trim molding to keep with the home’s setting and natural theme. For the walls, we went with our tried and true favorite, Cloud White from Benjamin Moore. This creamy, warm off-white is the same shade that we’ve used throughout our adjacent Tree House, so we know its a great selection for the light and surroundings of the area. For the molding in the common areas of the home we selected Stone Hearth, also from Benjamin Moore. This combo suited our needs perfectly and even our contractor was blown away by how well the colors paired together.

In the kids’ room, we wanted to go bolder. The vibe of this room will be playful but sophisticated and we went back and forth between a rusty auburn color and a warm gold. I voted for the former, but Kim won out in favor of the latter (she was right). We selected Sherwin Williams Golden Fleece for the perfect blend of sophistication and fun. It’s certainly bold, but in a way that’s playful but not too over-the-top. We can’t wait to design the room around it!

Next Steps

As we mentioned earlier, we’ve reached a massive milestone in this project. The keys have essentially been put back in our hands. All of our trusty tradespeople have been paid and the home is nicely buttoned up on schedule. From here, we’ve got two bathrooms to finish, a whole house worth of doorknobs to install, a kitchen to design, a basement to clean… and the list goes on and on forever.

At this point though, we’re taking a moment to celebrate the fact that we’re exactly where we hoped we’d be at this point, if not a month ahead of schedule!