An interior open millwork staircase can form a central point for a home's design and decor.
The term 'millwork' is broadly used to describe hard and soft wood trims and manufactured wood items that get installed in homes to finish the walls, doors, and windows. The type of millwork can set the decorative tone in a home. Millwork can be smooth and minimal, which blends cleanly into the home's decor, or highly fluted and decorative, catching your attention in colonial and country motifs.
Pine Millwork
The most basic millwork category, pine boards, are milled into variously shaped trim that is installed around doors, windows, and the perimeter of rooms. Economical and forgiving, pine trim is easy to install, caulk, and paint to match any room's decor. Pine trim is typically not stained and varnished: the soft properties of its wood create an uneven appearance.
Hardwood Millwork
Hardwood boards such as maple, birch, cherry and oak are milled into decorative trim and used to enhance a room's decor. Hardwood trim is usually stained and finished since the fine grain and hard wood surface lends itself to this process. Hardwoods can be milled into trim profiles that are wider than soft pine while retaining their shapes. Hardwoods often are used to make crown molding and baseboards that are three inches or wider.
Vinyl-Wrapped Composite
Composite wood boards are wrapped with thin, wood grain, embossed vinyl to create an inexpensive and easy to install millwork. This economical no-work approach is often used in apartment buildings and starter homes. The vinyl-wrapped millwork creates the look of stained hardwood trim, but costs less. This trim is manufactured with matching doors for interior decor.
Architectural Millwork
Architectural millwork describes highly ornate, custom wood pieces that are used to build open, winding staircases, featuring spindle rails and hardwood stair tread. Installing staircases is an art form unto itself, and a handmade open staircase is often the center point of a home's interior design. Whether these installations are stained and finished with varnish or painted, the architectural millwork projects must be installed perfectly to create a structurally sound staircase and handrail that is at once also beautiful.
Pre-manufactured Millwork
Pre-manufactured millwork refers to doors, windows, window walls, and patio-door units that are installed in homes during construction. A home center's millwork department provides prefinished or raw wood doors and window wall units for contractors. The term millwork also describes pre-hung metal doors and vinyl replacement windows. In the same way that wood trim creates a home's decorative motif, windows and doors are used to accent a home's look and feel.
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