We’ll just add some trim.
            This is an expression that is used with astonishing frequency in our home.

            As do-it-yourself people (read cheap), we are always taking on projects for which we have not been properly trained.  “Trim,” as a noun, is the word we use to express what is needed after the inevitable mistake has been made.

            I have also come to realize that “trim,” as a verb, is just another word for fix.  I have never gone sailing in my entire life, but if I found myself on a sailboat and the captain yelled, “Trim the sails!” I would immediately understand that he meant for me to “fix” the sails.  Of course, “fix” is such an ambiguous term.  The boat would probably sink before I could figure out how to fix those pesky sails.

            Pilots also use the term “trim” to describe the condition of the plane in reference to the horizon.  Again, it’s a very good thing I have never been in a cockpit.  Otherwise, before long, everyone on the plane would be intimately acquainted with the horizon.

            “Slim and trim” has been used to describe the condition of one’s body.  Not mine, of course.  If “slim” was the objective and “trim” was the vehicle one used to get there, we are, once again, talking about fixing something. Although, in my case, “trim” doesn’t even begin to explain all the fixing that would be required.
            I could say to my daughter “I want to fix your hair.”  But if she didn’t see anything wrong with not being able to see anything because of her disorderly locks, she might balk.

            However, if I tell her I want to trim her hair, it implies that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her face looking like a stage after the curtains have closed.  I simply want to enhance the look she has already developed. She’ll understand my meaning of trim after I bring out the hedge clippers, but by then, it’ll be too late.  Her protests will fall on obtuse ears.

            What do we use hedge clippers for?  We use them to TRIM bushes.  If your hair looks like a bush in need of a trim, it follows that a hedge clipper is what is needed to trim it… Work with me here.
            When your skirt is too short, you add trim.  When you trim your roast, you are fixing it for dinner.  Decorating for Christmas is called trimming your tree.  When you trim your nails, you are fixing them.
            As my husband and I are finishing yet another home improvement project, one of us will always look around at our handiwork and say, “This is going to need some trim.”

            It’s simply a nice way to say, “We’re going to have to fix this when we are done.”