Baseboard is a moulding that is rarely noticed, since it is usually found only along the border of the floor and the wall. It is also known as “mop board,” because it is the moulding most often hit by the mop when cleaning the floor. This is part of the reason why the baseboard is there: it protects the bottom part of the wall from mops, shoes, and other wear, keeping your walls in pristine condition.

Baseboards are usually relatively simple-looking and often loosely match the style of the casing in a room. A “colonial” casing is most often seen with a colonial base, which is also called an “ogee base” or “O-G base.” Ranch base, also known as clam base, is usually paired with its counterpart, the smooth ranch (or clam) casing.

Casing is a moulding that is usually used to surround windows and doors to give them a finished look. They can be used on interior or exterior doors. The styles of casings vary somewhat to give a room a different feel.

There are two sizes that are most common:

• 2 1/2” wide — by far the most common
• 3 1/2” wide — also found fairly often

If you are replacing or matching moulding, check which size you have. If you are adding new moulding, look at both sizes first to get a sense of how each looks.

The two most popular styles are:

• Colonial casing (the top right profile)
• Clam casing (the top left profile), also called ranch casing

Bed mouldings are an option to use when a vertical and horizontal surface come together at a corner, much like where a cove moulding, crown moulding, or cornice moulding are used. A bed moulding tucks into the corner a little tighter than a crown moulding but has a more pronounced shadow line than the simpler cove moulding.

It can be combined with other mouldings to give your ceiling borders a very interesting look, or it could be used to dress up the edges of stairs or many other corners in your home.

The profile is very similar to the cove moulding, though it includes an extra profile that gives it a distinct appearance. It also fits into the corner in a different way, sitting at an angle and leaving a small space behind it. This feature helps make it useful for masking irregularities in the joint between the wall and ceiling.

Crown mouldings are designed to go into corners to create a more interesting shadow line. This is similar to cove mouldings, bed mouldings, and cornice mouldings. However, crown mouldings differ in both their profile and size. Their profile may incorporate a cove or may consist only of gentle curves.

Crown mouldings have been in use for an exceptionally long time. In some cases, their age is evident by their size and thickness. In a few rare instances, crown mouldings can be difficult to match due to their unique dimensions.

Stool Cap is often called a windowsill since it is what you see when you look at a windowsill. It attaches to the subsill of the window and both protects and dresses it up

Stop mouldings are used primarily on the inside of door andwindow jambsso that the door will fit snugly into the jamb, without allowing light to pass through. It is often attached to a flat piece of jamb, so there is no need to rout out a rabbet, or groove, to accept the door.

Quarter-round moulding is a good all-purpose profile that can soften any 90-degree angle. It is often used along with a baseboard to help finish off the edges of wood floors or to ease the edges for transitions between rooms. It is also useful to mask joints inside corners, giving a clean, finished look.

Chair rail is the moulding you see running around a room, approximately 3 feet up the wall. This moulding was originally put in place to protect the walls from chair backs. It kept the chairs from striking and cracking the plaster. Today, it serves a similar purpose but has become more decorative than protective.

There are two basic types of corner mouldings: inside corners and outside corners. We stock several sizes of outside corners and one size of inside corners. Some come as precut 8-foot pieces, but we also sell them by the foot.

A corner moulding can be just the thing to dress up the corner of your wall, drawing the eye down the rich, stained wood to the matching baseboard. It can also provide a nice break in the lines and texture of the wall, creating a pleasing transition between different wall colors or patterns.

Cove moulding, or “scotia,” is a fairly simple yet elegant moulding that adds extra texture to an inside corner. It is essentially a scooped-out corner that softens what can be a sharp transition between a wall and ceiling or along the edge of a stair tread. Cove moulding is often seen as a simpler version of more ornate mouldings, such as cornice, crown, or bed mouldings.

Band moulding has many uses. It will give an interesting edge to the top of a wall or add shadow lines to a wood project. It can be attached to most anything that needs a little dressing up.

In some sizes, there are two different profiles, known as “spearpoint” and “roundpoint.” Spearpoint has an angular cut in its point, while the roundpoint has a softer, rounded look to it.

Cornice moulding serves a similar purpose in room design as crown, cove, and bed moulding. It fits into a corner and adds interesting shadows and sight lines to any 90-degree joint.