Decorative moulding adds interest to a plain door.
You can enhance the decor of any room with decorative mouldings. Trim work around doors and windows adds a certain finished quality to a room. Because wood moulding has become relatively expensive, substitutes to wood were developed. One such substitute is a composite plastic that mimics wood closely. The Louisiana-Pacific (LP) Building Materials Company manufactures a variety of composite mouldings, each with its own distinctive profile.
Material Composition
LP states its mouldings are made from a polymer-based formula. In laymen's terms, this is a composite plastic. It cuts, mills and sands similar to pine. Unlike wood, it has no knots or weak points. It's uniform, meaning it doesn't have warps or twists. LP further states it's not as heavy as wood.
Profiles
LP offers hundreds of profiles of moulding products. Some common profiles used in traditional finish carpentry are wainscot chair railing, ceiling to wall trim and window and door trim. LP has several product groups, such as Crystal White. LP publishes a catalog that specifies all the profiles, and the catalog can be downloaded from the LP website.
Painting and Finishing
The Pine Plus series can be painted and stained. Five series of moulding products, such as the Ultra and Infinity series, come prefinished. The Providence series is unfinished oak veneer glued over top of the composite. The PrimeMoulding is primed, but unpainted.
Resources
To assist you with installation, LP offers resources to the general public on its website. Some of these include installation and cutting instructions. For your safety, LP also distributes the material safety data sheets, or MSDS, on all its moulding products.
Tags: moulding products, composite plastic