What will you remember most about the last few years? One memory for us will be the “Great Wood Shortage of 2020”. How ridiculous is that? But honestly, with needing to finish two bedrooms, a wood shortage really caused us delays and high prices. So one thing Tyler decided to do was to make our own MDF Trim, or as some call it, baseboard.

Tyler literally made the trim for our second bathroom remodel out of different sized sheets of MDF and a router. The finished trim is amazing and more our style, instead of the typical 90’s trim. Below is an image of the original trim in the second bathroom.

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Published October 28, 2022
Updated March 24, 2022
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Bathroom Design for MDF Trim

Designing our bathroom was so much fun. Picking trim colors, wall colors, what to paint the doors and cabinet and how to design the countertop, was literally so much fun. This bathroom, our hallway second one, was all brown. The walls, ceiling, cabinet, trim, floor, doors and countertop were ALL brown. It was so claustrophobic.

However, when pricing already finished trim, it would have been a fortune. Trim prices range from $10 a linear foot to $35 a linear foot, depending on what wood you use and what finish style it is in.

MDF Trim Pricing

At a local store, a 4’X8′ sheet of MDF is only $32.47. For this bathroom, Tyler made the trim out of the sheet of MDF. He designed it all to be Craftsman style. Below is the finished trim in the bathroom. The door trim and casing will be designed the same in the whole house.

So, while working on the finishing touches of the basement bedrooms, Tyler went about making the baseboards and trims to match the finished upstairs bathroom. Tyler used one tool to create the trim out of the MDF. This Bosch Router does it all! You can use it to make just about any design. I really have no idea how to use it – Tyler is a pro with this tool for sure!

The pricing on the MDF was from October 2021.

Samuel’s Window

Below is Samuel’s bedroom window showing the pieces dry-fit. After they fit, each piece was primed and then painted with two coats of Trim and Door White and sanded after the primer and first coat of white. To see all of the prior progress, check out how we added the two egress windows to the basement by clicking the link below.

How to install egress windows for the basement remodel

Matthew’s Window

This is Matthew’s window, with the pieces also dry-fitted. Tyler glued them together and sanded it down so it would be smooth without noticing the seam.

Painting all of the MDF Trim

Elliana is showing off all of the door trim made from MDF.

Even more MDF Trim

Here are more pieces of trim, door casing, baseboard and more. These were all cut from one various sizes and thicknesses of MDF. To save space, we stacked them all together on top of pieces of scrap wood, so they were off of the floor, and then used a foam roller to paint.

This long piece was a piece Tyler made for the ceiling to hide all of the ductwork that ran the length of the two bedrooms. Instead of doing a drop ceiling the whole rooms, he was able to design half the room with drywall tight to the ceiling and a portion of the room with drop ceiling.

These two pieces of MDF are the window sills for each egress window. Each piece of trim got two coats of Primer with a light sanding in between each coat.

Painting the long MDF baseboards

These pieces are the baseboards. Please excuse the background mess. Our kids were playing and making memories.
To paint the MDF Trim, we used a basic primer and then two coats of Door & Trim Enamel White. It was easy to roll on, and as it was an enamel paint, it self-leveled.

These walls are the outside of the boys’ closets. The bedroom doors are inset, and they swing out instead of into their rooms. The main reason we did that was to allow their rooms to have the most room possible without doors blocking their way.

MDF Trim and Door casings

Tyler used each piece of MDF trim and built the door casings and encased it with trim.

MDF Trim installation

When the baseboards were dry, Tyler cut them for each wall and installed them with a trim Nailer. To keep the baseboards off the floor, he used a piece of wood that would be the thickness of the carpet and padding. Using pieces of wood to keep the pieces off the floor also helped to level the trim around the room.

The closets also got trim and door casings for the slide-by doors.

Sam’s room is right next to the furnace, so we designed his room to have a wall at a forty-five-degree angle. This allowed his room to look bigger and gave it a great feature wall.

This is the wall next to the forty-five-degree wall and has a drop ceiling instead of drywall tight to the beams. In doing this, we have full access to the shut-off valves for the water right outside.

Tyler is getting the baseboards and trim done! Right above him is the drywall that covers the ductwork returns that leads to the upstairs rooms. When designing the rooms, we talked about doing a basic (and still an amazing amount of work) drop ceiling.

But, with the door right next to the ductwork, we feel the drop ceiling would have been way too low for this space. So, we decided to hide the ductwork with drywall, cover the pipes with drop ceiling and drywall the rest of the ceiling.

Ethel cat was inspecting Tyler’s work!

Tyler hard at work! This man not only works hard for our family each day, but he comes home and literally built two bedrooms for his boys!

In Sam’s room, he has a pilaster next to the egress window that we had to leave, and yet drywalled around. Tyler had to cut the baseboard at such an angle to fit around the pilaster with each edge cut at an angle.

If you notice the wood at the base of the wall, Tyler used a three-inch strip of wood to go behind the baseboard. This was a two-fold reason.

First, to allow the trim to be nailed to perfectly as we had steel studs. Secondly, the wood was there in case the basement would happen to have water damage.

Closet door trim

This is the trim around the closet and the door casing for the doors. As the closet doors will be sliders, so their door casing is flat without a jam. All of these pieces were handmade by Tyler out of sheets of MDF.

Here is Matthew’s closet! Tyler is installing his baseboard, door casing and trim. We used wire rack in the closets. It was literally the easiest to install and least expensive.

The baseboards were so long we had to cut them through the doors. We were so glad to have them all in one piece without a splice in the middle. This job alone took a few days. After the filled-in nail holes passed Tyler’s eagle-eyed inspection,

I was then able to paint the final layer of white trim paint on everything. I say eagle-eye inspection, mostly because this man painstakingly took so long cutting, routering, sanding, fixing, installing and loving on the MDF trim.

Therefore, it deserved my 100% effort to get the nail holes to disappear before finally painting. It is all in the details!

Painting the Doors

When all the trim and baseboards were finished and installed, the doors were painted with General Finishes Milk Paint in Dark Chocolate. It literally only took two coats. When the paint was dry, I did two coats of satin topcoat.

Drying doors!!! If you could believe it, Ethel cat decided to give them a try when they were drying, and I had to repaint a section of one of the doors. Cat owners, can you relate!? Lucy dog would never do this to me!

Epoxy windowsills out of MDF

Here are the two windowsills for Samuel and Matthew’s bedrooms. Epoxy has been a fun skill that Tyler and I have enjoyed doing together. We use Stone Coat Countertops. They have a great YouTube channel where they explain how to use all of their products. So far, we have done over four projects, and plan to do more in our house in the future.
*Stone Coat is not a sponsor*

Installing windowsills

Matthew and Samuel’s epoxy windowsills installed! It was so much fun creating a unique piece of art for both of our boys. Check out more of our epoxy projects by clicking the link below.

Epoxy Countertops, Recipes and Remodeling

Drop Ceiling Installation

Tyler installed drop ceilings in each of their bedrooms to cover the furnace vent pipes, so they could be easily accessible. The rest of the ceiling was drywalled so we could have full access to the height of the ceiling. This was a tedious process as he had to cut each piece by hand.

All of the rails also had to be customized to fit the space. When we designed their bedrooms, we wanted as much of the ceiling to be drywalled tight to the beams to keep the spaces open and tall.

Tyler made the trim above the door to match the upstairs bathroom trim. The rest of the house is going to be designed around this Craftsman Style trim. All of the pieces are individual cuts and he glued them all together, so it is one piece. The whole top trim was nailed in as one piece above the door.

MDF Trim can be used for so many purposes! All of these trim pieces were then nailed on and had to be puttied, sanded, puttied again and then painted. It was amazing the look of the trim once all of them were finished and painted white. There are no seams, nails, screws or marks.

Finished!

This project was a ton of work and an equal amount of time involved. As much as it took weeks of work, the finished product was incredible! The baseboards and trim and door jams are just amazing, carpet installed, and the boys moved in!

Samuel’s Bedroom

This bedroom addition was no easy feat. We had to cut in the concrete to install two egress windows, frame the windows, frame walls, insulate, wire, drywall, mud, sand, MDF Trim, painting doors, installing doors, paint, and finally carpet.

Matthew’s Bedroom

I cannot express to you just how amazing this experience was, from start to finish. During a pandemic, he was not off work, and yet was able to complete this project in time for my major surgery in July. We were then able to move the two boys out of the bedroom they shared with their younger brother and upgraded our house from three bedrooms to five bedrooms.

While we will not be doing this big of a job anytime soon, I am grateful for the learning experience and help from friends and family.

If you want to check out another project we did, click the link below to see how we completely transformed our backyard!
~Monica

How we added over $12K to our house value!

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