Give the job a professional look. Here's the score on those room-finishing touches

If you think your newly remodeled attic or basement looks handsome now, just wait until you get the trim in place. As a matter of fact, why wait? Now is the time to do this job.

Trundle over to your local lumberyard and take a look at all the stock moldings on display there. If you want to keep costs down to a minimum, order your trim from the selection carried in stock. There are all sorts of fancy and elegant moldings available on special order, sure, but they cost like crazy.

Here's another tip. Whatever molding you select (and you're going to need this stuff to finish off the ceiling, baseboard and the areas around the windows, doors and cabinets) choose a com­pletely symmetrical type. Some ceiling molding, for example, has one surface wider than the other. The part that fits up against the ceiling may be ll2 in. wide and the part that goes against the wali 2 in. wide. Although the decorative effect may be quite striking, this stuff is miserable to fit into place. Most molding is mitered (cut at a 45 degree angle like the pieces of a picture frame) and the cutting gets to be a wild hassle if you have to keep matching up unequal

The trim makes the room: Simple, unadorned trim is easy to install, gives room a neat, uncluttered look.

surfaces. For the most part, you'll be better off if you stick to simple moldings. Plain ordinary quarter round is inexpensive, easy to apply and goes with almost any type of wall or ceiling treatment.

Miter the edges of the molding carefully. If you don't have a table saw for this job buy an inexpensive miter box for your handsaw. Nothing de­tracts from the finished appearance of a job as much as poorly fitted trim.

There's a slight trick to fastening the molding into place. You see, trim does more than just dress up the area. It's intended to hide the joint (which can sometimes be sloppy) where two surfaces come together. It also serves to hide the gap should the materials contract and leave a wider open­ing. For this reason don't fasten the mold­ing to either the ceiling or the wall. In­stead, drive the finishing nails through the molding at a 45 degree angle so they go past the surfacing and into the studs be­yond. With this method both the walls and ceiling are free to shift slightly without dragging the molding along.

With baseboards as well as ceilings the simplest trim is your best bet. For this buy a molding called "clamshell." It's a one piece type that you just miter to size and fasten to the base of the wall with finishing nails. If you want to, you can add a hunk of quarter round between the clamshell and the floor.

Cut trim carefully. Use an adjustable square to draw line at a 45 degree angle before cutting.

With care, you can use inexpensive miter box to cut trim. A table saw is better is available.

Important molding tip is to nail at a 45 degree angle past sur­facing and into studs. Molding will hide gap due to shrinkage.

Simple,  inexpensive  molding  is  stock  1x3 lumber  with  quarter  round  on  top  and  in  front.

Preiab door frame is handy short cut. Just meas­ure size ol opening and purchase at lumberyard.

Use the same gambit of driv­ing the nails at a 45 degree angle so that both walls and floor can move slightly without the damage showing.

Countersink all nails slightly below the surface and plug the holes with any good wood filler. Sand, smooth and finish in a color that matches or contrasts with the decor of the room.

If you've added any new windows you may find that a complete set of ready-cut trim is available to finish them off. By all means plunk down your money for this time-saver. Door trim, too, comes in a precut kit neatly mitered and ready to nail into place. Although the price is slightly higher, this nifty kit comes cut with a precision that you will find hard to equal.

Doors

Let's talk about doors for awhile. If you have added a new entrance to a brand-new room, your best bet to close it off is a hollow-core, flush door. These are light­weight, relatively inexpensive and come in a variety of woods that can be finished naturally or in a utility veneer designed to take paint smoothly.

Good-looking batten door is made of extra tongue-and-groove paneling, and two or three battens.

An old panel door can look elegant when covered with wood paneling or plywood and then painted.

Don't think that you must buy a new door, however. It's per­fectly feasible to cover an existing door with whatever type of finish you've put on the walls. A battered old paneled door that's still serviceable can look quite elegant when the face has been covered with wood paneling. You can also dress it up by fastening a sheet of plywood on the
surface and painting in any hue that gives you pleasure.

Without going to a great deal of trouble you can make a door. This is especially easy if you have some extra solid wood panel­ing. In a fast couple of hours you can turn out a good looking batten door.

Set up a sort of jig to hold the boards together while you assemble tongue-and-groove paneling to the proper dimensions. Join them permanently with three or more wood battens attached to one surface. Just drive screws through the battens and into the paneling. Don't think you have to hide the battens. The effect can be quite hand­some in a rustic sort of way. You may even want to capitalize on this effect. If so, drive long nails through the face of the door and through the battens so they project about l2 in.

Slip hinge pins in, wedge door in place and give the screws a final tightening. Use three hinges.	Trim in form of ornamental iron otters additional possibilities such as an open room divider.

Then clinch the nails neatly. The antique effect can be heightened if you have the usual cigar box full of used nails (preferably bent and rusty) in your work­shop.

Fitting a Door

Whatever type of door you select you'll probably have to trim the wood so that it fits neatly into the door frame. Cut down one edge and the top of the door until you can slip it part way into the frame. Then, from the other side, mark off the excess that must be trimmed from the remaining edge. This phase of the job you can prob­ably do with a saw, but from here on, do all work with a plane.

Fit the door into the opening and slip a couple of nickels underneath it to give you the proper spacing. You may have to plane the top or bottom of the door until it fits. Take a third nickel and make sure that you can slide it easily all the way around the door. If it sticks at any point between the door and the frame plane down the wood at that spot. When you've finished this maneuver you'll have a door that can be opened easily without binding and yet fits in the frame without any gaps. All this for fifteen cents.

Trim door to fit in frame. Cut large excess off with saw, but use plane for any minor adjustments.

Slip two nickels under door and use cardboard (or another nickel) to test the side and top spacing.

Now for the hinges. Be a sport in this department. If the door is anything other than a lightweight, hollow-core affair, use three hinges instead of the traditional two. That way you'll never have trouble with the door sagging. Place the door hinge side up on the floor and support it so the whole rig doesn't fall over on you. Place the hinges in position and outline them with a sharp pencil. The top hinge should be about 7 in. down from the top of the door and the bottom one 11 in. up from the floor. The third hinge goes midway between these two. With a sharp chisel, carefully mortise out a little depression just deep enough for one leaf of the hinge to fit flush with the surface of the wood. Ditto for the other two, and then fasten them down with long wood screws.

Slip the door into the opening again (you 11 need those two nickels once more) and mark the hinge position on the door jamb. Take down the door, pull the hinge pins, separate the loose half of the hinges and mortise out the jamb for them. Fasten these hinges into place, slip the door back into the opening, drive in hinge pins and you're swinging. If you've followed the foregoing carefully, you'll have a door that fits perfectly in the frame.

As for the latch, the easiest approach is to use hardware that mounts on the surface of the door. If you want the recessed type, be sure to get the templates that go with it. These serve as a guide for cutting the deep mortise that the lock fits into. A strike plate should be mounted on the jamb, and you'll have to mortise out for it just as you did for the hinges.

You may prefer to use sliding doors over some openings. Although hardware for this varies widely, most of the installation pro­cedure is straightforward carpentry. There's a track that you fasten to the top of the door jamb and roller hardware that hooks to the top of the door. Interlock the two, slap up some trim and the job is done.

Other Decorative Touches

Before we leave this subject, there are a couple of other things you might consider. You re not limited to wood alone for dressing up the final finish of the room. At most large hardware stores, lumberyards and building supply companies you'll find a wide assortment of ornamental iron. Some varieties such as "Colonel Logan" are especially designed for the do-it-yourselfer. The various sections (with or without squiggles. scrollwork, columns, curlicues and similar nifties) can be cut to size and bolted together.

Ornate room makes use of more elaborate (but standard)  trim  and nylon  clothesline  looped  overhead.

You can use this stuff to add a decorative touch to very ordinary wood columns or create open room dividers to partition off the space without turning it into a series of tiny cells.

Of course all this involves nothing more than imagination and the sky's the limit. There are tremendous possibilities in the creative use of nylon clothesline, for example. This is available by the foot under a number of brand names (Puritan Cordage is one). By simply fastening screw eyes into the ceiling you can loop the cord tautly back and forth to give a striking checkerboard effect overhead. Use vertical runs to make fast, inexpensive paneling. The whole procedure is so quick and easy that you can humor any scatter­brained idea you dream up. The cost will be pennies.

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