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Hello! I’m Amanda from Our Humble A{Bowe}d and I am thrilled to be a guest blogger today! This post is a before and after as well as a tutorial. We have installed white trim work throughout our home and it has made such a difference. Here is a before shot of our dining room:

Yep, totally manly. That needed to change. Over the course of four years, we changed one item at a time, (like installing a sleek drum pendant, sewing new curtains, and repainting a light shade on the walls) until we had changed everything. One huge change we made was adding more decorative trim. Are you ready for the after?

Here’s where the tutorial comes in. How to install decorative trim to create maximum impact for little money.

First, determine the design you would like to have. In our case, we needed a plate rack and that determined the 67 inch height of our trim. We already had our 5 inch tall baseboard installed, so we left those. Ben had installed chair rail, so we removed that. We decided to place the top of our horizontal piece at 36 inches from the floor. We measured the length of our wall to find the center. Once the measuring was done, we bought our trim and got started.

Most of the trim we use throughout our house is MDF (medium density fiberboard – pretty much sawdust glued together). I will note where we have used real wood. We use MDF for several reasons. 1. It’s cheaper than wood and we know we’re going to paint it anyway. 2. MDF is very flexible, especially compared to wood, so it’s easy to work with. 3. Because MDF is mostly sawdust, it’s a green material.

We went to a local home improvement store and bought several pieces of 3 1/2 inch wide by 1/2 inch thick square style trim. This trim does not have any decorative cuts, but does have slightly rounded edges. We also got one piece of MDF crown moulding , 2 pieces of wooden symmetrical trim for the horizontal center, one piece of 3/4 inch wooden quarter round moulding and one sheet of 3/4 inch thick MDF.

What a change! No longer traditional and stuffy this dining room now exudes a fresh, clean, and contemporary feeling! And don’t you love the detail of the little love birds perched on top of the railing?! Adorable! Thanks so much for sharing Amanda!