Period mouldings installed in your home can be quite subtle, but they can also be designed to make a big statement. The problem is that bad quality mouldings will be noticeable whether they are a short length of skirting or a more prominent architrave surround on a door. This is because mouldings are very influential in how a room is balanced and how your interior design draws on perspective. So if you have poor quality mouldings, you will be able to tell and it will frustrate you daily until you make the decision to replace them.
So the key issue is how to identify good quality mouldings in order to avoid this hassle and disruption, and to ensure your home looks its best at all times. Essentially, a good quality moulding can be identified in how it looks, how it is installed and how long it lasts. So here we will look at the factors which dictate a good quality moulding.
Wood type
There is no disguising the quality of a natural hard or softwood. MDF is marketed as a practical and affordable alternative, and for some applications it is, but good quality mouldings will always benefit from being made from natural woods, such as pine, sapele, tulipwood or oak. The main benefit of a good quality wood is that it can be manipulated to how you want it. So you can paint or varnish it and the beautiful wood grain will still be visible. It can also be machined to size and cut and sanded easily to leave a clean finish in terms of both the surface and edges, so that joints fit together well. Good quality woods are also more robust and resistant to damp and deterioration.
Installation
Good quality mouldings help you by making the installation process easier. So they won’t split or crack, should retain their position for longer and not need adjusting or tightening, and should offer an option of being fastened using adhesives or by using a pin or small nail. Depending on the application, you may not want fastenings to be visible, but a small pin is a common method of fixing a moulding such as a rail, a skirting or architrave. And because you are using natural woods, any joint you cut is clean and straight, fits together well and therefore looks good and provides a long-lasting connection.
Matching designs
Period mouldings are designed to mimic classic design periods such as Victorian, Georgian and Edwardian. But they will only look good if the craftsmanship of the moulding is first class, and therefore the design closely matches the design period you are trying to replicate. There is a subtle difference in the profile of different period mouldings, but this is detectable if the technique is poor or the materials are poor, and you will be left with a moulding that looks wrong and is out of place within your interior design. Hand-crafted mouldings using traditional techniques can rarely be beaten in terms of how faithful they are to authentic period materials.
Durability
Only time will tell in terms of how long-lasting a moulding will be. Durability is the acid test when assessing what a good quality moulding is, but ultimately, if you pay sufficient attention to the factors outlined above. Then you should enjoy many years of consistency from a moulding in terms of aesthetics and practicality.
Contact our team for good quality mouldings
At Period Mouldings we use only natural woods and our mouldings are hand-crafted using traditional techniques. So you get mouldings that have been lovingly created and using techniques that have closely mimicked period designs for many years, providing the best finish possible. So if you want good quality period mouldings, have a look at our range and contact our expert sales team for help and advice.