Building Custom Trim for Windows and Doors in Old Little Cottage

Building custom trim for our windows and doors in our old little cottage turned out so beautiful and fit the time period.

CUSTOM BUILT OLD LITTLE COTTAGE

Most everything in our little pine cottage is handcrafted and custom built. I don’t think we really set out to build a handmade home. It just somehow ended up happening that way naturally I guess.

When we first bought this old little cottage I thought we would just do a few cosmetic renovations. Basically put a bit of lipstick on our cute little piggy and call it a day. Well~ if you have been following our journey, you will know that is exactly the opposite of what we did.

Forget the lipstick~ we ended up performing plastic surgery instead! I know, such a graphic analogy, but it’s meant to help you understand the true nature of how we got here. Not that this was planned and probably to many real estate investors would be the least likely way to get our return on our investment.

Yet~ the return for us has been the journey and learning process and not necessarily the profit. We put priority on preservation efforts rather than the monetary investment we would gain. It has served us well and in fact we should still come out ahead once everything is completed.

And since we paid off our mortgage in only three short years, all of the equity belongs in our pocket and not the bank. We live in a very desirable location so the equity will continue to grow even though we have such a small house.

CUSTOM TRIM FOR WINDOWS

We last left off at the kitchen and it was coming together very nicely. The next thing to tackle was window trim which would tie everything together.

There was old reclaimed shiplap on our kitchen and living room walls so the window trim would frame the windows tucked inside the shiplap. To make it all work with our unique custom home, we would also have to build custom trim. And we would want it to fit in with the time period of our 1930’s cottage.

Nate continued to refine his carpentry skills throughout this project. Building every piece of the window trim and frame by hand. Taking lots of measurements and making sure it all fell into a perfect square.

He often reminds me that in old houses nothing is really square so you have to make it square. And in Texas where we are, the clay soil moves and shifts all the time, which may impact the inside of our home too.

The kitchen window was the first to get its trim Next was the two large colonial style windows in our living room. They are huge windows for our tiny house, but let in a lot of wonderful natural light.

For the living room window trim, Nate custom built one large frame for both of the windows. It turned out really nice and tied the two windows together. It was a great idea to build them that way.

Finally he worked on our bathroom and laundry room windows. All of the window trim had the same style and fit the time period nicely.

CUSTOM CURTAINS FOR WINDOW TRIM

Nate took an extra step to see what the long living room windows would look like with mock curtains over their new trim. He bought bags of blankets at the Salvation Army for a good price. They were like a cotton blended material. He draped them over a rod and put them on top of the window trim.

It was a great placeholder to see how actual curtains could flow in our small space. It looked really nice. If we sewed those blankets for a real curtain rod it may work. Or we could also just buy curtains. We haven’t completely decided on that yet. But, it was exciting to see how it could all come together.

CUSTOM TRIM FOR DOORS

Then he worked on the door trim for the two bedrooms (main and office) as well as the doorway into the bathroom and laundry room area.

Since the bedroom and office doors were also custom built with much wider door jambs that had to be factored in when building the custom trim for the doors. The built-ins in the kitchen and living room caused us to build additional walls in the bedroom and office behind those built-ins so they could be insulated.

Once the trim was built and placed around the doors you couldn’t even notice the larger door jambs when the doors were closed. Nate painted a bit of the inside of the jamb, but would leave most of it unpainted and left as the bare wood. Then he could figure out later what to do with the extra part of the unpainted jamb later.

One thing we learned in this process of building custom trim is to prime and paint the trim separately. When they are not already installed around the windows or doors. That way you don’t have to tape off the trim and worry about getting paint on the side of your walls or beautiful old reclaimed shiplap like in our case.

We hope this inspires you to keep on creating, designing, and building your own diy projects. You will learn a lot in the process and gain a sense of pride for your accomplishments.

Building custom trim for our windows and doors in our old little cottage became another labor of love project that we learned a ton from!

CHECK OUT OUR VIDEOS

Thanks for joining us on this journey! We hope that you will find inspiration watching us learn as we go while we’re attempting to renovate and rebuild this old small historic cottage mostly on our own~ while working full time jobs! Stay tuned for more progress updates ahead. Read more about us here.

You can also watch a video about this here.