With lumber prices still high and taking a while to come down, you may have to cut some corners on your remodeling project. Here at the Getaway, we chose to save money by DIYing our trim.
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We needed about 200 linear feet of 5-1/4-in. baseboard and 200 linear feet of 3-1/2-in. door casing. The retail cost would have been between $600 and $700. With a little bit of time and sweat equity, we made almost 500 linear feet of trim for $150.
The cost of a standard 1/2-in. x 4-1/4-in. x 8-ft. piece of square baseboard trim primed from The Home Depot is $16.09 per stick, or $2.01 per linear foot. If you are trimming out a 10-ft. x 14-ft. room, you’ll need about 48 linear feet of baseboard trim, costing you about $100.
But what about the trim for the windows and door? You can find square 5/8-in. x 3-in. primed medium-density fiberboard (MDF) window and door casing from The Home Depot for $9.91 per 8-ft. board, or $1.24 a linear foot. The casing for one large double window and one door will take about 43 linear feet, costing $60 for six 8-ft. boards. The total cost to trim out one room is more than $160.
Here at the Getaway, we kept it simple and made all our trim 1/2-in. thick. With some basic DIY skills, you can make your own trim for your 10-ft. x 14-ft. room for $28 from just one 4×8 sheet of 1/2-in. MDF.
Making DIY trim is easy. All you need is a circular saw, router, sawhorses, three 2x4s, and enough 4×8-ft sheets of 1/2-in. MDF to make the trim you need.
Set up two sawhorses about six feet apart and attach two 8-ft 2x4s with a one-inch gap between them as cross supports. Your circular saw will ride through that gap with each cut. Lay the third 2×4 on top of the sawhorses as a movable cross support.
Priming the 4×8 sheet of MDF before you cut it will save you time down the road. You will simply touch up the edges of the trim after you cut the pieces.
You can easily make several trim profiles or create custom trim using a router with a bearing bit. Round-over, chamfer, and ogee are a few router bits profiles that work well for making ranch, Colonial, and Shaker style moldings.
Install an Adjustable Rip Fence to your circular saw and set it for the desired width of your trim.
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Rip your first piece of trim, then measure it to make sure it’s the correct width. Lay the cut piece on top of the sheet as a template for your next cut. Pull the sheet toward you and align your next cut mark with the one-inch gap in your supports. Remember to route the decorative edge before each cut.
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Metal kitchen countertop edging provides and authentic look for a midcentury, vintage or retro kitchen. On this page, I outline where to find this kind of edging, which is meant to edge laminate — Formica, Wilsonart, etc. — countertops like they did in the s, s, and earlier. I point to examples from readers’ actual kitchen projects… I show a video of my own steel-edge kitchen countertop… and I point you to historic references. All with the goal: To help you decide which style of metal edging you might prefer and to help make it easier for you to find it. Note, while I initially tried to spotlight original manufacturers, it often proved difficult from looking at the websites to tell who makes what and who sells who what makes. So, there’s a mix of both manufacturers and distributors — shop around!
U-shaped snap-on stainless steel countertop edging is my favorite — I used it in my kitchen remodel. To do my countertops we used three different pieces — (1) a snap-on countertop edge, (2) a “cove” molding to connect the countertop with the backsplash, and (3) a smaller snap-on top edge of the backsplash.
The only source that I know of for this stainless steel edging is >> New York Metals <<. Note: For stainless steel, go straight to the pieces named “SS”-followed by a number. My husband gets huge credit for discovering New York Metals. They have been making this edging for decades. 10+ years now into my kitchen, this edging is looking as great as the day it went in!
I have heard from some readers in the past that local stores may carry some of these products. If you can find stock locally, you may save a lot on shipping, as this stuff often ships in 12′ lengths — oversized and a potentially relatively high shipping charge. I have no research on unique local retailers — this may be determined by local and regional preference. If you have the time to do your research locally, you may be able to save money on shipping.
Above: Laminate companies now make metal-look laminates that you can potentially use for counter top edging. Like Christine did in her kitchen, above.
And, Anna used auto body molding trim for her counter edging.
On this question, I refer you to consult with the professionals and/or manufacturers who are selling you the edging.
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