I still have those same casings on many of my bedroom doors. like you say, you really don't see them.

I've replaced all the baseboard w/the 5" one. I just left the thinner door casings. Some of the newer doors have the one like in your pic. it's a mis-mash, but no one really notices.

as for the paint peeling. try and sand off as much of the flaky paint as possible to get it smooth. (wipe it clean with a good cleaner. if you use TSP, don't leave any residue on the molding) Then go over it w/an oil based primer. (Kilz has one that is super adhesion, but if you live in Calif forget it. you can't buy it here)

once that dries, it should be fine to paint over it with any paint.

@Beth H. :yours is mixed and its ok? I was thinking id change it all in the living area and my bedroom, and leave the kids room with the old stuff, but maybe thats weird. You think I should just leave the door trims, will it look ok with these doors? You have these shaker doors with clamshell? can I see if so?

Change the casings where it would look OK and leave it in other places?

this is the original molding on the door from 1980. I can't make it bigger, there's no room. inside or on the outside. so yes, I left them. (patched and painted them nicely) but you can see the new baseboards.

in the other part of the room I have diff molding. this door is always open, so you don't see it

@Beth H. :So I need to change ALL of the base tho-to match? even in my room where the floor should really be redone, but I probably won't do it ever. haha

@Beth H., is that a Ragdoll?!!?

I have left my mouldings too. I planned on leaving in the bedrooms, but, I thought, I would change all but around the windows, in living, dining, kitchen and hallway, but, money ran short before I was able to do that, so, they got sanded, and painted and I put them all back up. I didnt change the baseboards either, but, I do plan on doing that in the next yr or so. Sand, prime, with good primer, and then paint them. They will be fine. Mine were painted over oil based with latex too by the previous owner, probably for a quick sale.

Beautiful cats, Beth, all, 3 of them.

Rather than try to scrape and repaint the existing trim, I would replace all the casings and baseboard with 'big box store' primed MDF 1x4 (actual dimensions 5/8" x 3.5") for the casing and 1x6 (actual dimensions 5/8" x 5.5") for the baseboards. Your existing worn-out trim will look noticeably worse against brand-new doors.

To answer a couple of your other questions:

• No, it won't look weird to trim the casings where needed to fit an inside corner. Almost every home has a few doorways like this and nobody notices.
• No, you don't have to remove baseboards to replace the flooring. Just be sure to put down a quarter-round or shoe moulding at the bottom - that's what you remove when you re-do the floors. We replace flooring in older homes all the time and we never remove the baseboards. You just remove the moulding at the bottom - that's what it's there for.

The trim that you have is period appropriate. And I would 10x rather have real wood trim than MDF junk. Go buy a stick of MDF trim. Stand one end in a bucket of water and leave it for 10 minutes. Take it out, let it dry & then decide if you want to waste your money on more of it.

Gee, I never knew people made their trim choices by immersing them in buckets of water. Maybe they do in floodplain regions? Today I learned something new! LOL SMH

The picture you posted of your new door style with new trim looks great! I don't know the details of your current house, so not sure how "period appropriate" your current trim is.

There is a huge difference between a ranch style trim vs. Victorian or Colonial type mouldings, and whether it's worth the work, time & money to save them.

Depending on your lifestyle and location of your house, mdf may be just fine. If you're putting it in an area prone to moisture, that could be a problem.

But if you get an unexpected flood, even wood trim will get ruined! (Ask me how I know!!)

In terms of the casing size, I would change it all to "match", but use 3 1/2" where it fits, and where it doesn't, use the same profile, but in the 2 1/2" width, rather than cut it down.

You might also want to look at a Shaker or Craftsman style where the top is squared off. That eliminates the need for miter cuts.

Rather than going to the trim section at Home Depot, check in the lumber section for primed mdf. It's about half the price, comes in longer lengths (up to 16'). And it is usually more dense then the "fiberboard" HD sells as trim.

@Mary Elizabeth my house is a 60s ranch. Many of the doorways have no trim (if there is no door) just drywall. The windows are all just drywall (some have tile ledges, and i've removed some) The clamshell was just builder grade trim when my house was built in 1969. Some of the trim in my house has been replaced with MDF, and it IS swelling in some areas. I personally would not choose MDF for baseboards because of mopping and water. Maybe door trim would be OK since it really never touches water. We live in Miami, so its humid-but we also have the AC running most of the year, which sucks the moisture out of the air. Here are some pics of the "style" of my house. To me-my house doesn't have a style, its just a simple-no fuss ranch. As for the trim, I think my painter/handiman who was going to install it uses primed finger joint. Im still a little worried about finger joints too.... not sure which is better-fingerjoint, or MDF. They both have their negatives and positives, and both come in 16 ft. lengths.

@Jill Daniels where are your curtains from? Love your home!

@Illie They are Ikea Ritva. I used the 4 prong pinch pleat hooks.

@Jill Daniels, your home is lovely! Maybe I missed it in your original post, but I wasn't sure if this was a total DIY project. If it is within budget, by all means, wood is better than mdf, where possible. I would NOT want finger-jointed pine, but FJ poplar, when milled well, is pretty good for casing & baseboard for painted.

We just did a large mill work order - (a dozen doorways, over 200' base & crown, etc.) and the 8' & 16' casing were great. However, ALL of the 7'6" casing pieces were garbage. We returned them and used 8' ones, even though it was more waste. So you have to check!

But again, I think mixing the width of casings in matching profiles will be a much better look than cutting down one that is too wide.

@Mary Elizabeth what's wrong with FJ pine? How is FJ poplar better? Do you think MDF is better than FJ pine? I have 18 doorways and like 500 ft of base. I was not going to install it myself.

I would go with the finger jointed pine, or poplar, before MDF. It is humid where I live too, and I have known many who have had to replace the MDF trim in their newer homes, because, it swells and looks bad with humidity.

Pine is much softer than poplar, although now with the shortage of materials and price increases, you have to be careful with the poplar you get as well.

Google fj pine vs. fj poplar vs. mdf to see lots of info and opinions.

Here is one thread to start with:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/2584211/mdf-or-pine-baseboards-painted-white

My husband & I are doing the final 3 rooms of a total remodel. We have either removed, refinished or replaced ALL of the trim - crown, base, chair rail, stairs railings & window & door casings - in a 6K sq ft house.

Because everything is a "live & learn", we used a primed pine chair rail - as I really liked the profile. It is fine in the larger rooms, as it is never touched, but in the stairway it gets dinged easily.

But one exception to the primed poplar, is where we had to replace some door jambs. In our experience, mdf finishes better and holds up better. The best option would have been a paint grade maple, but we have some door jambs that are 8" & 10" wide, so we had to improvise.

This has been a long project (life happens), and when we started, we would use some trim from from the big box stores in certain profiles. At this point in time, we only order through lumber yards that use specific mill work companies. (In our area, that's Metrie, Ferche, Colonial Craft.)

MDF paints great but is subject to damage fairly easily. FJ Poplar is much harder than pine and paints great and easily. FJ Pine is now pretty much all new growth wood and is prone to sap which bleeds thru when painted quite easily, and the FJ seems to show thru more often on Pine than on Poplar.

I changed out 80% of my 1968 clamshell trim with pre-primed MDF. It's painted, so I didn't see the need to spend extra on "real wood". I did keep the clamshell on the windows in the bedrooms and the laundry room. Maybe some day it will get changed out, but I forget it's there most of the time.

This is probably mdf. Swollen

Our casing (3 1/2" beaded colonial) and base (5 1/2" colonial) were both available in either primed fj poplar or mdf. PROPER finishing of the mdf requires that the back of everything and the bottom of the base are all sealed with an oil based primer to help with any potential moisture issues. We did not find the cost savings between the wood vs. mdf worth the extra work.

I think your money will be better spent on new moulding, rather than paying the labor to prep the old trim.

@millworkman I got prices for FJ pine and poplar, and the poplar is more than twice the price. not sure if its worth it.

Only you can decide that.

@millworkman I think my main issue is in situations like these. in the picture with the closets, is it ok to put larger trim? it would be 3.5 instead of what's there now which is 2.25, and then the wall space between closets would be very small-1.5 inches about. Would that look odd? Then there are other areas where he said he would cut the frame back a bit to fit, where the door is tight in the space, but then what about the base? Would it look tight and cramped if the baseboard ended into the door frame? If I need to keep this 2.25/2.5 profile, do I need to do that all over the house, or can some be 3.5 and some 2.5? OR just keep this clamshell trim on the doors that I cant make bigger and change the trim on the doors in the living space only?