We started putting trim up in the tiny house today. Originally we had planned to make our trim out of the many piles of scrap wood from the build, but that would involve two days of cutting, planing, and sanding all the trim, and then a day to prime everything….
….or we could head down to McCoy Millwork and pick up some finger-jointed-primed wood for 150 bucks. It’s getting late in the year and we are both pretty tired so we chose option B.
I hate MDF trim, but I’m actually a big fan of FJP. It’s cheap and made of fast growing softwood that is still real wood but wouldn’t be made into anything else. In my mind it’s an excellent product for the intended purpose and a good use of forest resources.
Trim carpentry brings back memories of being 26 years old and living on the coast in my truck with a beat up old surfboard and my first Makita compound miter saw. Wetsuit, kneepads, salt and sawdust. For a time I worked for this super intense dude who helped me get started in the trade.
One of the things he showed me was how to make these handy reveal setting blocks. You basically just cut a square scrap of trim that will easily fit in your hand and your pocket and then creep into it with a tablesaw until you’ve got the reveal you’re looking for. You can then hold this up both to measure for, and to set the trim.
Other than that it’s really not hard, measure, cut, nail, repeat. Sometimes it can get a bit stressful when you’re doing really high-end stain grade work but paint grade trim work is pretty chill.
We decided at the last moment to trim the interior of the bathroom window with pine to give it a warm halo. It was nice to have the Rubio Monocoat leftover from the counters so we could use it on the sill and keep working through the change rather than having to wait for the dry time on polyurethane.
– Brian
