DIY craftsman window trim

WHOOT! I finally tackled a DIY project that I’ve been wanting to do FOREVER. But I was afraid…so afraid. I am excited to share it with you – there are a lot of pics so grab some coffee or a Coke and enjoy. :)

In addition to beefy baseboards and door trim, my dream has always been to add chunky trim around our windows. It just adds SO much character, I just love it. But all these years I haven’t been able to do it because our window sills weren’t wide enough. A long time ago I realized I could add some very skinny trim around the window that would match up with the sill:

This is a before I shot quickly before I started three days ago when it was 80 degrees and gorgeous. Today it’s 32 and snowy. But I digress.

To do the trim I wanted to do I’d have to take the whole sill (or stool, as it’s technically called) off and that intimidated me. But then I saw Cristina’s tutorial last summer and I thought it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. I ended up following her instructions and they worked perfectly!

I actually wanted to do this SO badly at Christmas after we got our tree up. I thought it would look so lovely to have the beefy trim on the windows, but I reeled it in and realized starting this in December was not the best idea. ;)

Fast forward a few months and I finally started! First up, I removed the apron underneath the sill. Fun story – in the CRAZY cold we had this winter the window was iced up and when it melted it went into the wall. That area below the apron was a big bubble of water. Good stuff!:

So first you need to score all the areas (with a razor) that are caulked, otherwise when you pull the trim off it will pull the paint/drywall away:

I freaked for a split second when I pulled it off and thought there was mold:

But it was just overspray from when the room was painted years ago. :) Whew.

Here’s where I forgot to take a pic, but after the apron is gone, you take a crow bar and start pulling up the stool, or the sill. It was actually MUCH easier than I thought it would be. I mean, I’ve stood on these things – I thought they’d be impossible to remove. But they came up pretty fast and easy.

The only issue I had was the ends would start digging into the drywall as I pulled up:

When I worked on one end at a time (instead of trying to pull the whole thing up at once) it helped a bunch. I just focused on one side and got that up and clear of the drywall, then got the whole thing out. I do have to touch up a little drywall there but it’s not bad.

This is the shape of our stool when it was out:

And here’s what it looks like underneath:

I was actually AMAZED that we didn’t have any water issues – our windows get condensation every winter if we don’t adjust our humidifier in the HVAC system just so. And they were covered in ice more than once this past winter. This shows the power of glossy paint and caulk my friends!

After all that I took the skinny trim off the sides of the windows:

I kept that all for future projects. I’ve used it on all of the wainscoting in this room.

Then I started the process of building up the new trim. I shared this image when I did my first craftsman door trim and it is so helpful:

 

I can’t find their size used for the fillet, so I use a trim piece called stop instead. It works great.

Also, our window sills are deeper so I had to use 1 x 8 wood instead of the standard 1 x 5. I followed Cristina’s instructions and used the old sill as my guide for the new one. The only thing you need to keep in mind is your trim that will be on the sides of the windows – mine was 3 1/2 inches and I wanted the stool to stick out a bit from that, so I traced the original onto the new wood, but gave myself four inches:

Here’s how it looks installed so that makes more sense:

I followed my traced lines with a jigsaw to cut it out. Don’t worry if the lines aren’t perfect!:

They will be mostly covered with the new apron and the trim on each side of the window. The parts that aren’t covered are easily fixed with caulk. (My BFF.):

Putting up the trim is my favorite part! Seeing it come together is awesome. You’ll notice in that pic above that I had to pull off some other trim – more on that in a minute.

I took my sander to the edges of the new sill because this pine has really sharp edges. I do this on all of the door trim I’ve installed too:

I just knock it down a little so it’s not so pointy. If you have a router this would be even better. Then I did one coat of primer and two coats semi gloss paint on everything. I may go back over the stool with a high gloss just to make sure it’s waterproof.

So when I was putting the new trim up I realized the wainscoting I installed years ago was going to be in the way – I had to pull off each box on the wall and reinstall it all to make the new trim work. Total pain in the butt.

Some of it you can’t see, but some areas I still need to putty, sand and paint again:

I still need to touch up that area that was a bubble of water too. :)

But that will come later because for now I’m enjoying the new window trim that I love! Whoo hoo!:

I had to pull the chair rail down to do it and I’ve wanted to replace it for a while anyway, so I started installing a new simpler rail:

I only have one wall done so far. I can’t BELIEVE how different the room looks with the beefier trim around the windows.

I took the drapes down before Christmas (you know, thinking I would do this back then), and I don’t know if I can put any back up:

We’ll see. :)

Here’s a closer look at how the new chair rail, reinstalled wainscoting and new window trim works together:

I still need to clean up the walls a bit like I said, and caulk around the trim up higher, but for now I’m calling it good!:

I took one of these images and detailed the wood I used:

That should help if you’d like to try this yourself! Remember the 1x2 and stop up on top and the stool on the bottom will be a bit wider than the other pieces. The ones on top are 1/4 inch longer on both sides and the stool on the bottom is 1/2 longer on both ends.

Here’s a shot of the before again:

And here’s the after:

Now…I just need to find someone to add the trim to the upper windows. Cause this girl is not doing it. :)

Have you beefed up your window trim? Like everything else, it will take me years to get it done throughout the whole house, but this start makes me happy! Big props to Cristina for her awesome post that gave me the courage to tackle this one! And if you have any questions let me know in the comments – I tried to cover everything but I always forget something.