Ran into a retired trim guy at the lumberyard in Spokane

He saw me picking through the pine and asked what I was building. Told him it was a simple window seat. He pointed at my tape measure and said 'Kid, mark your reveal with a story stick, not numbers. Wood moves, numbers lie.' Made one right there with him from a scrap of poplar. Anyone else use story sticks for finish work?

3 comments

3 Comments

barbarah191d ago

Used to think my tape measure was the only tool I needed for trim work. Then I kept having tiny gaps show up after painting, especially around door frames in the summer. Made a story stick for baseboards in my old house where the floors were all wonky, and it just clicked. You're not fighting fractions, you're matching the actual space. That retired guy was totally right.

jasonf171d ago

Forget the tape and forget the stick for a second. What really changed things for me was marking the cut line directly on the trim while it's held in place, especially for inside corners. You can have a perfect story stick measurement, @barbarah19, but if the saw blade has any runout or you're off by half a degree, you still get a gap. Laying the piece right in the corner and drawing the line along the wall's actual profile catches every single bump and dip. It turns the trim itself into the final measuring tool.

spencer81d ago

Yeah, that's the real pro move right there, @barbarah19. I had a similar lightbulb moment trying to fit crown molding in a room with no straight corners. Once you stop trusting the numbers on the tape and start trusting the actual wall, everything just fits better. It's a whole different way of working.