How to Replace Baseboard Molding: Step 2 - How To Install Trim Around Doorways

This is kind of an optional step, but trim around a doorway really helps tie a room together. First you’ll have to remove the old baseboard molding and you’ll want to use the same methods for removing any trim that might already be around the doorways of a room. My doorways didn’t have anything, so I decided to put some trim around them.

For this project I’m going to paint my trim and molding white. I do this for a couple of reasons:

1. White trim and molding “brightens” a room. I find most stain to be too dark for my tastes.

2. It’s much easier to “hide” mistakes and blemishes with paint than stain. I’m an amateur at this and I tend to make mistakes. Paint helps me hide those mistakes.

3. Paint-grade trim and molding is actually a little cheaper than “stain-grade” trim and molding. With stain-grade molding the assumption is that you’re coloring the wood, but the wood grain and compositions will still be visible. With paint-grade trim and molding the assumption is that you’ll be completely covering the wood, so it doesn’t have to be quite as beautiful of a cut. If you’re going to paint your trim you will also find that you have a few extra options in materials you can use. You’ll likely be able to use wood or some of the various plastic or composite materials now available. I’ve used just about all the different types and I have to admit the composites are nice because they are a little lighter and more flexible than your typical piece of pine.

4. All the other trim and moldings in my home are painted white.

Measure twice, cut once. To be extra sure of measurements hold the trim piece up to where it’s going to end up going against the wall.

Why should you put trim around the doorways before continuing with the baseboards? Because your baseboards will most likely terminate at all the doorways around the room, so you need to know if they’re going to end right at the doorway or if they’re going to wrap around or simply terminate at the trim of the doorways. I like terminating at the trim of doorways because I think it has a finished look and because all the doorways with doors in my home do it this way.

You can use almost anything for trim around a door, but you might want to stick to patterns and designs that are meant for baseboard molding. For my doorways I decided to use a simple 2 1/2″ wide baseboard molding that had a gentle tapering to it. I put the tapered end against the opening of the doorway and put the thicker end facing away from the door.

Before you put your trim up do yourself a favor: paint it first. Yes, you will end up cutting off painted pieces, but if all the trim is already painted when you put it up you’ll only have to do touch-up painting afterwards and you won’t have to worry about accidentally painting the wall or the floor or the cat or anything else. I actually put my wood trim pieces on a couple of saw horses in the garage and paint them when they’re lying flat. This helps to eliminate drips and helps things dry evenly.

When putting trim around a doorway you’re generally going to have three pieces: a left side, a right side and a top. The pieces fit together pretty simply, with a 45 degree cut on the ends of the two side pieces and a piece across the top with two 45 degree cuts. You have a couple different options for cutting trim, but using a miter box and a handsaw or simply using an electric miter saw are the two easiest ways to make sure you get the right cuts. I’ve done it both ways and the electric saw can make a cut in about 1 second while the miter box and handsaw will take you a while to line everything up and make sure it’s all in place before you sit there and run your saw back and forth 20 times.

A miter saw makes short work of cutting trim at a 45 degrees angle.

As with all wood projects the devil is in the measuring. Measuring carefully and deliberately is the key here. I measured each piece a couple different ways. I first took down a tape measurement of the floor up the very corner of the left opening of my doorway. Then I did the same with the right side. I do this because I’ve found that the even though things look perfectly level and even in a house doesn’t mean that they are. In this case the right side of my doorway was about 1/8 inch higher than my left. After taking that measurement I brought in a piece of trim and laid it up against the left side of the doorway, exactly as it would be placed. I used a pencil and put a mark right where the top of the doorway met the side of the doorway. I then measure from the end of the board to the mark. If you’re good it should be exactly the measurement that you got when you measured from the floor up.

I do all this because I have found myself rushing through measuring projects before and inevitably I’ll be off a 1/4 inch somewhere along the line because I either wasn’t paying attention or didn’t bother remeasuring. I go by the old adage of measure twice and cut once… Trust me, it’s very difficult to uncut wood!

Don’t beat up your trim with hammer marks. Countersink the nail so that it is below the surface of the trim.

Now that you have a mark or measurement on the piece of trim you’re going to use I suggest you add another 1/16th inch to the whole thing. Why? Because whenever you cut wood you really are “removing” the wood along the line of the saw blade and most saw blades end up taking out about 1/16th of an inch of wood. Think about it this way: if you have an 8 foot piece of wood and you use a saw to cut it half you will NOT end up with two four foot boards. You might instead end up with one board that is four feet long and one that is 47 and 15/16 of an inch long. That missing 1/16th of an inch is lying on the floor as pile of sawdust. The lesson I’ve learned: I often slightly “overmeasure” because I can always go back and sand or even plane off a slight layer of wood.

You’ll then use your miter saw or miter box to cut from the mark you measure on the trim (which should be the “thinner” side of the trim that facing the doorway) and cut “outward” to the thicker side of the trim.

Above: Gap between trim pieces before being filled in with joint compound.
Below: Gap after being filled in but before being painted.

Once you’ve cut your left side you may want to nail it up. For trim I simply use tack or paneling nails. I do not generally hammer nails straight into the trim because I have awful luck with splitting wood. I almost always drill a hole with a 1/16th drill bit and then hammer my nail into that hole. Most doorways have studs around them so you probably won’t have much trouble getting the trim nice and tight against the wall. For the moment put on nail in just to keep the trim there. You may eventually have to move it slightly.

Do the same with the right side. You should now have a left side and right side piece of trim attached. All you have to do now is measure and cut the top piece. I usually take a few measurements for cuts, cut one side of the top piece and then actually lay it against one of the side pieces. I’ll then mark the other side, cut and lay it in place. If things don’t quite line up you can now sand or move the pieces around slightly to try to get them all fitting together tightly.

Once everything is in place just go ahead and drill a few holes and drive small nails into the holes. I pound the nails in until they’re real close to flush. I then use a counter sink to drive the nail head down “into” the trim so that I leave a little hole that can be filled in later.

I’m going to tell you something that most experts won’t tell you. I’m telling you this because I’m not an expert: Don’t worry if the pieces of trim don’t line up with one another perfectly. I usually try to line up the outside of the trim so it’s nice and square but if you have a few gaps between that can always be “covered up” and it’s pretty easy. If you have gaps you can just use a little joint compound to fill them in. Smooth the compound out and when you touch it up with a coat or two of paint the gap will be practically invisible unless you’re looking for it. Do the same with the nails holes: just fill them with some joint compound and paint over them when dry.

Don’t get me wrong: this does take a little practice. I generally use a finger to smooth the compound into the crack and even it out. Don’t be afraid to get your hands a little dirty. After it’s all dried just go ahead and sand it smooth and apply a coat or two of paint. I’ve found that I can replicate the “texture” of rolled on pain by using a sponge brush dipped in a touch of paint. I just tap the sponge brush against the trim a couple times leaving a thin layer of paint that has some bumps with it.

Now that I have the trim up it’s onward to installing the new baseboard molding!

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