If you want the short answer: The best wood for a diploma frame depends on the look you want. Solid hardwood gives you the widest choice of finishes and profiles, while 100% recycled wood is another durable option. Choose the finish that works with the room, then choose the width based on the size of your diploma.
Sounds simple enough. Until you start comparing black, cherry, mahogany, walnut, barnwood, matte, gloss, gold accents and half a dozen different widths.
The good news is that there are really only a few decisions you need to make.
Moulding, also commonly spelled molding, is the wood border around the outside of your diploma frame. It holds the UV-protective glass, matting and backing together, but it also has a big impact on how the finished frame looks on the wall.
At Church Hill Classics, we’ve handcrafted more than two million custom frames since 1991, and choosing the right moulding is one of the questions our Customer Service team hears most often.
Here’s how we help customers narrow it down.
Which Wood and Finish Work Best for Which Room?
If you want a quick place to start, think about the room where the diploma will hang.
Every moulding we make is either solid hardwood or 100% recycled wood and is handcrafted in the USA.
If the room is… | Choose a finish like… | Mouldings to look at |
A home office or living room with mixed furniture | Black satin or black matte | Eclipse, Midnight |
A law, medical or finance office | Mahogany or dark walnut with gold or bronze accents | Regency Gold, Cambridge, Chateau |
A traditional home library or dining room | Cherry with a beaded or gold inner lip | Kensington Gold, Gallery, Cordova |
A modern apartment or gallery wall | Thin black, natural or gray | Midnight, Natural, Drift Gray |
A coastal, farmhouse or cottage space | Distressed gray or white | Barnwood Gray, Snow |
A large diploma or a frame meant to be the focal point | A wide Presidential profile | Madison, Premier, Jefferson, Washington |
See every finish in our frame mouldings gallery, or try different options on your own diploma size in Create-A-Frame before you decide.
Diploma Frame Styles and Finishes, Explained
Black: The Most Versatile Choice
Black diploma frames are popular for a reason. They work with almost any décor and can feel traditional or modern depending on the profile and finish.
The biggest difference is usually the sheen.
Eclipse is black satin with a high-gloss inner lip that adds a little definition around the mat.
Midnight is fully matte, so it has a quieter, more modern look.
Onyx is high-gloss black with a gold or silver inner lip for a more formal finish.
Washington is our widest black option, a 2 3/8-inch Presidential profile designed for larger diplomas and statement frames.
Already know you want black? Our modern diploma frames collection is a good place to start.
Cherry: The Classic Academic Look
Cherry is probably the finish many people picture when they think of a traditional diploma frame.
Its warm, reddish-brown tone works well with black mats, school-color matting and traditional office furniture.
Cordova is a high-gloss cherry at 1 7/8 inches wide, with enough presence for a full-size diploma without added ornamentation.
Kensington adds gold or silver beading for a more detailed, finished look.
Gallery combines high-gloss cherry with a gold inner lip. It’s a little dressier than Cordova without feeling overly ornate.
Mahogany: A Natural Fit for the Office
Mahogany is darker and browner than cherry, so it tends to feel a little more formal.
It’s a strong choice for law, medical and financial offices, especially when a diploma will hang alongside a professional license, board certificate or other credential.
Regency Gold has a mahogany furniture finish with a gold inner lip.
Cambridge is a deeper mahogany with black accents and no metallic detail.
Studio Gold gives you a narrower take on the same traditional look.
Jefferson is our Presidential mahogany, a flat 2 3/8-inch profile that gives a larger diploma more visual weight.
Walnut and Espresso: Easy to Work Into Almost Any Room
Walnut sits somewhere between cherry and black.
It’s brown rather than red, which makes it easy to pair with the gray, white and lighter wood tones in most homes today.
Prescott is a warm honey walnut with a subtle cross grain, so a bit of the wood’s character shows through.
Chateau is a richer French walnut with a brushed bronze inner lip, a natural pick for the law and finance offices mentioned above.
Madison is our Presidential walnut, the same flat 2 3/8-inch profile as Jefferson in a dark walnut finish.
Prefer something darker still? Hampshire Gold and Devonshire Silver pair a dark espresso satin finish with a gold or silver inner lip.
You can compare every walnut and espresso option in the frame mouldings gallery, or preview them on your own diploma size in Create-A-Frame.
Gold: Usually an Accent, Not the Whole Frame
Most people looking for a gold diploma frame end up happiest with gold detail on wood rather than a fully gold border: a gold inner lip on black (Onyx), mahogany (Regency Gold) or cherry (Gallery), or the beaded detail on Kensington Gold.
You get the shine without the frame competing with the diploma itself.
We do make a few all-gold mouldings, like the brushed Gold Rush, but the most popular gold look by far is our gold embossed diploma frames, which pair those gold accents with your school name embossed in gold on the mat.
Solid Hardwood or 100% Recycled Wood?
Every moulding we make is one or the other, and both are handcrafted in the USA.
Solid hardwood is the classic choice. It takes a furniture-quality finish, which is why the cherry, mahogany and walnut mouldings look the way they do, and it covers the widest range of profiles, from the thin Natural to the 2 3/8-inch Presidentials.
Our 100% recycled wood mouldings are built to the same museum-quality standard with a smaller environmental footprint. That family includes the distressed Barnwood Gray from the table above, plus matte black, white and school-color options.
If sustainability is the deciding factor, start with our 100% recycled wood diploma frames and work backward to the finish you like.
How Wide Should the Moulding Be?
Most standard diplomas look right in a moulding between about 1 1/4 and 2 inches wide, which is where most of our mouldings sit.
Go wider for oversized documents or a statement wall. The Presidential mouldings, Madison, Premier, Jefferson and Washington, are 2 3/8 inches wide and built for larger diplomas, like many law and medical degrees, or for a frame that’s meant to be the focal point of the room.
Go narrower, an inch or under, when the frame is joining a gallery wall or a smaller space, so the display reads as one collection instead of a row of competing borders.
Does the Moulding Change the Price?
Yes, but usually less than people expect.
The moulding is one part of the price, along with the matting, glass and any embossing, and width matters more than wood. A wide Presidential simply uses more hardwood than a narrow recycled profile. If you’re torn between two mouldings of similar width, price the frame both ways in Create-A-Frame and let looks make the call.
The same choices carry over to professional documents. If you’re framing a license or board certificate, the same moulding families are available in our professional license frames, sized for licenses and certificates rather than diplomas.
Ordering for a whole team or a certification program? Our sister site handles branded certificate frames for credentialing programs with volume pricing.
The Easiest Way to Decide
Open Create-A-Frame, enter your diploma size, and click through the finishes on your actual document layout.
Seeing Midnight next to Cordova on your own diploma settles the question faster than any guide, this one included. And if you’re still torn between two, our Customer Service team is happy to help you choose.
Ready to see what works with your diploma?
