Architect and engineer (1930) (14774970544)

Millwork is historically any wood mill produced decorative materials used in

building construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...

. Stock profiled and patterned millwork building components fabricated by milling at a planing mill can usually be installed with minimal alteration. Today, millwork may encompass items that are made using alternatives to wood, including synthetics, plastics, and wood-adhesive composites. Often specified by architects and designers, millwork products are considered a design element within a room or on a building to create a mood or design theme. Millwork products are used in both interior and exterior applications and can serve as either decorative or functional features of a building.

Historical context

Woodworking skills originally formed around wood carving, carpentry, parquetry, and cabinet making in ancient China. Historically, the term millwork applied to building elements made specifically from wood.''History of Millwork''
; article; Creative Millwork Llc. website; retrieved June 2013 During the "Golden Age" of mill working (1880–1910), virtually everything in the house was made from wood.
Hull, Brent; excerpts online;

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; p. xi During this time, the millwork produced in the United States became standardized nationwide.''Did you Know?''
article at Wise Geek online; retrieved 22 March 2013. Today, the increase in the use of synthetic materials has led many professionals to consider any item that is composed of a combination of wood and synthetic elements to also be properly defined as millwork. This includes products that make use of pressed-wood chips in the design, such as

melamine Melamine is an organic compound with the formula C3H6N6. This white solid is a trimer of cyanamide, with a 1,3,5-triazine skeleton. Like cyanamide, it contains 67% nitrogen by mass, and its derivatives have fire retardant properties due t ...

coated shelving.

Specifics

Millwork

building material Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rock (geology), rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materia ...

s include the ready-made carpentry elements usually installed in any building. Many of the specific features in a space are created using different types of architectural millwork: doors, windows, transoms, sidelights, molding, trim, stair parts, and cabinetry to name just a few. The primary material used in millwork items today are most often produced from soft or

hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...

lumber. Other materials used in millwork products include MDF (medium density fiberboard), finger-jointed wood, composite materials, particle board and fiberglass. Some millwork products like doors, windows and stair parts now incorporate the use of steel, stainless steel, aluminum, and

glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...

components. Most wood products used for millwork require decorative finish coatings. These finishes include stain and semi-transparent finishes or paint. The finishes protect the wood from decay, warping, splitting, and fading. Millwork building materials can usually be installed with little or no modification as part of the construction process.

Fabrication

There are two types of manufacturers of millwork goods. In one, referred to as "stock millwork",

commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a comm ...

fabricators

mass-produce Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...

trims and building components—with the end product being low cost, interchangeable items for commercial or home builders. In another, the product is

custom Custom, customary, or consuetudinary may refer to: Traditions, laws, and religion * Convention (norm), a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted rules, norms, standards or criteria, often taking the form of a custom * Norm (social), a r ...

produced for individuals or individual building projects—usually a costlier option which is referred to as "architectural millwork.

Uses

Millwork building materials are used for both decoration and function in buildings. Exterior doors and windows are typically tested by independent agencies and rated for energy efficiency. They can also be impact-rated, fire-rated, and can be specified to reduce sound transference. Interior millwork products are not rated for energy efficiency. These products are used primarily as a decorative feature, but will often serve functions for privacy, storage, and sound-deadening.

Types

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wainscoting Panelling (or paneling in the U.S.) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity to make roo ...

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cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

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corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

s, bracketing 57 Rue du Faubourg de Pierre (27353042388).jpg,

doors A door is a hinged or otherwise movable barrier that allows ingress (entry) into and egress (exit) from an enclosure. The created opening in the wall is a ''doorway'' or ''portal''. A door's essential and primary purpose is to provide security b ...

Window trim (5097885045).jpg, window, moldings, sashes, and trims Fireplace mantel ideas (5473768833).jpg,

fireplace mantel The fireplace mantel or mantelpiece, also known as a chimneypiece, originated in medieval times as a hood that projected over a fire grate to catch the smoke. The term has evolved to include the decorative framework around the fireplace, and c ...

s P Hall bannisters.JPG, Stairway, stair parts, and

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

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crowns A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...

, coves, casing, panel mold, caps and baseboard moldings RoyLindmanSantaMarialaBlancaSynagogue 004.jpg, wall covers or cladding, paneling, and corner bead Dyrekcja Kolei w Gdańsku.JPG, ceiling canopy Brass outlet cover.jpg, Switch-plates and interior wall access points

Historical context

Specifics

Fabrication

Uses

Types

See also

References

Further reading