An archway adds interest and character to a space, and this house has two of them. The rooms flanking the foyer were built with this unique, decorative touch, so Mike Spillane made sure they remained to give the rooms a feeling of importance.   

At first glance, putting up a custom archway can appear intimidating, but in this case it was relatively simple. The finish carpenter created a pattern for half the inside of the archway from an original piece of wood. Using quarter-inch plywood, because it has a bit of flexibility, he formed it to fit the pattern, shimmed it, and nailed it into place. Then he flipped the pattern over and repeated the process for the second half of the archway. The wood pieces met seamlessly in the middle.

Then he worked on the outside trim. He divided the project in half and created two sections that joined together on the wall. The trickiest part was making sure everything appeared uniform.  This required a lot of tweaking and readjusting to get it right.

Custom carpentry is a work of art where every detail counts. Especially when tying into a home’s existing architecture.