# Choosing rough stock for interior baseboard and trim



## toddbeaulieu (Mar 5, 2010)

Hello,

In our mudroom, the trim is super rough, and gouged. I assume it's rough sawn, but could be wrong. It's painted and we love the look. Want to replace plain stained trim in another room with a similar look.

Does anyone have any experience with this? What should I ask for? I thought it was rough sawn, but when I asked for it at a specialty lumber yard they said all their wood is planed and that using rough sawn as trim would be very difficult. Our house is super old and we love the plain look with built up layers of paint.

Thank you!


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## WibblyPig (Jun 8, 2009)

Can you post a pic? It may be rough sawn or it may be a lot of paint that's been scratched and repainted numerous times. Is there a detail on the top or is it just a 1x something? If there's a detail, then it was surfaced at some point in time and what you have is patina.


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## toddbeaulieu (Mar 5, 2010)

Here's a sample of the trim I like. Some of it's smooth, but banged up and has the appearance of many layers of paint. That's also a good look for us. But then there's this obviously gnarly wood in the mix. Some even more dramatic than this one.


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## jmichaeldesign (Oct 12, 2010)

That doesn't look roughsawn, just a little rough. Or roughsawn and lightly sanded. You can get cedar from Lowes or Home Depot that is planed on one side and both edges. We use it all the time for trim at work. Its a little bit rougher than your picture. Because its surfaced on three sides you can still get tight joints.


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## toddbeaulieu (Mar 5, 2010)

I've never seen this at HD. In fact, I looked this weekend and still can't find any.

So, I ended up doing this the hard way. I have but a single hand plane, and it gets abused. The blade's got nicks from nails. I used it to rough up pine trim. I also made some random gouges, dents and scratches. I think it will look good painted.


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## rhett (May 11, 2008)

The problem is where you are looking. Try scouting out your local craigslist material ads. You can find rough sawn wood cheap. If you want to put in the man hours, use a stiff bristle wire brush on pine.


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## oldworld124 (Mar 2, 2008)

You can do this by carefully sand blasting the wood surface and then going over it with a fairly soft wire brush with the grain. It will look almost the same after applying a few coats of paint.

A wire brushing machine will do it also. Sometimes custom garage door companies will have a wire brush machine. It is basically a drum sander with a wire brush drum instead of the sanding drum.

Here is a link to see a wire brush machine:

http://www.supermaxtools.com/products-superbrush-bush-sander-13.php


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

Seems you could duplicate this in a soft pine, since you are going to paint it, using a wire wheel on a corded hand drill.


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