Breakfast Room — All Trimmed Out

Last Updated on October 6, 2017 by Kristi Linauer

My breakfast room progress is going slower than I had expected this month because I seem to be getting into the habit of taking weekends off. 😀 Imagine that! But I picked back up on Monday with the trim — installing baseboards, trimming out the opening between the breakfast room and kitchen, and trimming out the back of the peninsula.

Then the guys came yesterday morning and installed the crown moulding, so I spent the rest of the day filling nail holes, sanding, and caulking all of the trim. I got everything caulked with the exception of some of the baseboards, so today I’ll need to finish that up, and then I’m ready to paint!!

And you’ll notice that I have paper and a drop cloth covering my floors. 🙂 See? I can do it! 😀

And let me tell you, trimming out this room has been a real test for me. I tend to be a perfectionist with slight OCD tendencies, and nothing in this room is square, plumb, or level. I had the floor leveled before I started on this room, but it didn’t occur to me to check if the ceiling was level.

It’s not. 🙂

And it was very noticeable above the garage door. The top trim on the garage door is level, but because the ceiling is unlevel, it made the door look crooked. So when the guys installed the crown moulding, I had them butt it right up against the ceiling on the left side of the door, and then shim it down towards the right side of the door, and then I caulked the gap at the ceiling. It’s still not perfect, but it’s much better than it would have been if they had just followed the ceiling straight across.

And then there’s the front wall with the three windows. Do you remember the issue there? The ceiling on that wall isn’t level either, and it has that visible header that creates a bump out at the top. So when I added the standard-height trim over the windows, the trim touched the header on the right side, but there was a 1/2-inch gap on the left side. So I decided to create a shorter trim for the top of the windows…

Well, that short trim as been bothering me. So I decided to take the advice that a few of you gave me. You suggested that rather than adding a top trim piece that is the same height all the way across, instead I cut the middle piece of that top window trim so that it fills the space all the way across.

So I tried it, and it looks so much better!

Yes, that trim is 7 inches high on the right side, and 7.5 inches high on the left side (over a span of about 9.5 feet), but I like that it completely fills the space between the top of the window and the bottom of the header all the way across. And once I get draperies hung on the windows, I really don’t think it’ll be that noticeable.

And I finally got the opening between the breakfast room and the kitchen trimmed out on the breakfast room side!! That was exciting, but required a lot of work.

When I originally trimmed out this opening (during the kitchen remodel), I had intended to keep all of the shiplap on the breakfast room walls and just drywall over it. So I ripped my top jamb and side jambs to the appropriate width to cover the tile on the kitchen side, kitchen drywall, 2 x 4 framing, shiplap on the breakfast room side, and drywall on the breakfast room side.

Well, then when I actually got to the breakfast room two years later, I decided to remove all of the shiplap in the breakfast room, which made all of the jambs on that opening 3/4″ too wide. So I had to remove all of them, and redo them. I was able to salvage the side jambs and just trim off the excess 3/4″ with my table saw, but I ruined the top jamb, so it had to be completely replaced.

But it’s finally done. Well…it’s installed at least. It still needs paint.

And I also got the back of the peninsula trimmed out. It still needs quite a bit of work, but even as it is now, it’s a huge improvement over this…

Right? 🙂

And now to the fun stuff today. Painting!! I’m so excited to see this trim all painted white, and also to see if I love the Benjamin Moore Classic Gray as much as I think I will.