This may have come up before (in fact, I might even have asked about it before), but I can’t find it using the search function…
I would like to get a book on interior millwork. Specifically, I would like to see various styles of crown, casing, baseboard, etc., what time periods they relate to and what they’re called. A real plus would be if it included information on how to re-create them.
There’s 2 things motivating me to look into this:
I work in a lot of older homes. I rarely see the the same molding in victorian homes and other than being elaborate, I can’t recognize a “theme”. I can recognize themes in the colonial homes I’ve been in, but very often they’ve been remodeled and the millwork is no longer consistent. So learning by seeing isn’t always the best way to learn. I enjoy installing trim and I would like to know more about it.
Also, one of these days, I want to replace the trim in my 1950’s era ranch house. It has very basic ranch casing/baseboard right now, but I don’t want to replace it with anything that wouldn’t be somewhat authentic to the time period. Knowing the little that I do now, it would be very easy for me to accidentally use something incongruous.
So far, here’s what I’m looking at:
This one also looks very good, but I don’t want to spend that much:
Replies
There is a book called "The Elements of Style" that has pictures of different styles of trim. Don't know if it covers into the 20th century.
"Elements of Style" is also the name of a rather well known book by William Strunk. A book on grammar usage and writing. Everyone who speaks the English language should read it.Old House Journal can help you out with this sort of thing. There are several books actually starting with some on architecture like the big book by Sir Bannister fletcher.
I like the book because it is a picture book. Barnes and Noble tried to sell me the grammar, but being an Okie, they don't speak nothing like I do.
The theory of Mouldings by C. Howard Walker 1926. I think I saw this on Gary Katz's site.
The Complete Book of Wood Mouldings. by Nala Wollen
Both good for profiles by not so much for themes.
These guys have a three ring binder of all their profiles drawn full scale. It is a bit spendy but a good reference.
http://www.forestermoulding.com/Products.htm
Also Dover has a lot of reprints of vic catalogs
http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-architecture--interior-design--period-style.html
Don -
For older houses I keep on hand a number of reprints for reference, such as the turn-of-the-century Mullliner catalog and others.
Jeff