I just moved into a house built in 1900 in a old New England town. While taking a break from the endless unpacking, I noticed that the trim around the doors and windows is not the same in all the rooms. I can understand why the kitchen has very plain trim, but the other rooms puzzle me.

Most of the rooms have very plain, basic trim--looks like 1x4s were used. But the dining room, the bathroom and the one back bedroom have somewhat nicer trim--it's still not at the very expensive, high end trim level, but it's definitely nicer than the other rooms.

I'd expect the living room to have the nicer trim as well, but it doesn't. It doesn't even have the narrow crown molding that the rest of the house does, although I suspect that the plaster walls have been removed and drywall put up in the living room and maybe the crown was removed at that point. Heck, the kitchen has the same crown as the rest of the house.

And most of the baseboards are just a slab of wood, maybe a 1x6? but the front hall and dining room have a bit of molding on top of that.

I guess I'd just expect the more public rooms, like the front hall, living and dining rooms to have the higher level of trim, and the bedrooms and kitchen to have the plainer stuff. But there's also been remodeling in some of the rooms at various points--there are narrow oak floorboards in some rooms and wider pine boards in others. And I think they walled up a fireplace in the living room, if the chimney on the roof is any indication.

Anyone have any ideas on why the varying trims?