You've Got Mail Trim

I love the movie You’ve Got Mail! I watch it during the holidays, and in the fall, and it’s good pretty much whenever. So I absolutely noticed the amazing trim in Kathleen Kelly’s apartment. But this time when I saw it, I was redoing my bedroom and I could implement it into my house! If you love her house too or are just into traditional Victorian trim, this post is for you.

If you don’t remember the trim, it’s shown in this clip-

I’m not going to include any still images to avoid any copywriter infringements. But if you need a good excuse to watch this movie, here’s your sign.

SUPPLIES for the You’ve got mail trim

step 1- prep

Start by deciding where the trim will go. This trim looks good as casing- so I suggest it go around doors or windows. Since I’m re-using the original trim for around my windows, I opted to use the You’ve Got Mail trim as door moulding.

I have 4 doors in the room so I ordered 8 of the Square Rosette pieces- one for each side of the door.

To figure out the perfect moulding for this project I did a lot of research- I needed rosettes that are the same width as rope trim. So I specially ordered this Rope Moulding with enough to go around each door.

After watching You’ve Got Mail a bunch of times, I noticed that above and below the square rosette is more decorative molding. So I bought one length of this Egg and Dart Moulding.

step 2- installation

Next, after all of the supplies are ordered, it’s time for installation. Start by nailing on the square rosettes. We put the bottom of the rosette at 31.5″ high- a good chair rail height. Tip, use a laser level on a tripod to get a consistent height across the room.

Once the rosettes are installed, cut the egg and dart moulding to the same length as the rosettes- 3″. Cut enough for above and below each rosette. Then nail them on as well.

Last, finish up by cutting the rope moulding.

Start at the floor and cut a piece to go below the rosette. Then work around the door and down on the other side. Nail each piece in place.

Since we have the stained glass over two of our doors, we continued the rope trim over the transom window.

Here’s a close-up shot because that rope trim is so good!

Note, most door moulding is three pieces and pretty simple to install. The You’ve Got Mail trim is 11 pieces- so much more complicated. The upside is that this looks super custom and special. A good room is full of special details so it was worth it for me.

step 3- finish work

And now, do the worst task of all- finish work! Fill all the nail holes with wood filler. Let that dry and if needed, fill with another round of wood filler. Then sand each filled hole until it’s smooth. Next, caulk each seam- where the trim hits the wall and where trim meets with other trim. Let the caulk fully dry.

After the caulking and hole filling is done (yay!), the paint can be applied. Personally, I was super excited to paint! I could see what the finish product would look like!

For the paint, I used Ultra Pure White paint. I brushed it on. Because of all the details in the trim work, it was slow to paint the moulding. A trick I used to make it go faster was to water down the paint a bit so it could get in all the cracks and crevices. Add just enough water to thin it out a bit but not too much so that it’s runny.

Even with that hack, it was still slow going as the trim needed 3 coats of paint. It was worth it for the pretty after though!

after

Ta da! Here’s how the You’ve got mail trim turned out! It’s a little tricky to see in these pictures, but they add such pretty details to the room.

I love having a little bit of Kathleen Kelly’s apartment in my house. Is this the cheesiest nod to my favorite movie? Maybe! I think it’s a fun way to incorporate the amazing set design in my room.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments!

p.s. if you’ve wondering about any of the sources for the bedroom, here’s a link to the reveal of the main bedroom.