My house was built in the 1970s. It’s a town home and there are a few thousand of them in my neighborhood which means they were all built very basic and plain.
Fast forward 40 years and updates have become necessary. When we first moved in we painted the trim right away and changed hardware from shiny and brassy to brushed nickle; that made a big improvement. Now that we’ve lived here for more than ten years, it was time to change a few more things. Like the doors and the moldings!
Originally we had solid panel core doors. Those have all been changed out to 6 panel core doors. I’d love to have solid wood doors but I didn’t feel that the cost difference was worth it in my neighborhood. Besides, I mostly wanted the look of the 6 panels instead of the flat and bland door from before.
So there they hung with plain old clam shell molding…. making me want to scream because it still looked old and dated to me. Slowly but surly, I’ve been changing them over. I started with the 3 door ways that are on my first floor and recently changed over all the door frames in my master bedroom. I’m ecstatic with the results and can’t wait to finish the rest of the upstairs.
With the right tools the process wasn’t too painful. I tried to take pictures along the way to explain the steps.
Materials
- Molding and corner blocks or molding kit (I found the kit at the local home improvement store with everything I needed)
- Nail gun and nails (I used 2 inch finishing nails)
- Caulk
- Paint and brushes
- Nail filler
- 5-in-1 tool
- Knife
- Level
- Chop saw
Prep the Molding
I laid all my molding out on a drop cloth and gave it two coats of paint. It was much faster and easier to do it this way then to wait until it was installed. I’ve done it both ways, trust me on this. Plus you can save time by painting and letting everything dry why you remove all the old molding.
Remove the Old
Using a knife, cut along the edge of the old molding where the molding meets the wall and where the molding meets the door frame. Cut through the old caulk and layers of paint. This will reduce patching the walls and sanding the door frame later.
Once you’ve cut all the way around, gently work a 5-and-1 tool into the crack, pulling it forward to pull the molding away from the wall. Work your way around the door frame. Be sure to watch for areas where you might have missed cutting or cutting all the way through so you aren’t ripping away at the walls. I’ve tried a variety of different tools to do this part and have found the 5-in-1 tool (it’s a paint tool) to work best. It has a nice narrow edge and it’s strong once it’s behind the molding so it doesn’t bend (don’t mind my “staging.” It’s hard to take a picture while holding a hammer and a 5-in-1, I have yet to grow a third arm…)
Completely remove the molding and discard of it. Be sure to remove the nails (they are probably long and thin) so someone doesn’t get hurt. This is usually IronFish’s job; I toss them in the back yard and make him remove the nails and hull them out on bulk trash day!
Install the Corner and Base Blocks
Obviously there are different types of moldings out there. I chose to use fluted molding with corner blocks because it eliminated miter cuts. I’m actually pretty good at them, but it’s taken me a while to get to that point and the installation process is much longer. Throw in a slightly unleveled door and you could be looking at angles that aren’t exactly 45 degrees which gets tricky. So I opted for corner blocks.
Decide where they should go, I find it best to eye ball their location and put one nail into one corner piece. Then I use the level to make sure I am putting the other corner piece in the correct spot. Once they are level to each other, I nail each corner piece in all 4 corners. My picture of just the corner block disappeared, so you get one with the trim already attached to see what I’m talking about:
Base blocks come next. You don’t have to use these but they came with my kit and I kinda liked them, so I used them. It may be necessary to cut a piece of your floor molding away in order for these to fit properly. It’s easy to hold them in place and see if that’s the case. If so, mark where you need to cut and do so carefully. Caulk and paint will tie the two together later, you just don’t want a huge gap by cutting too much of the floor molding away.
I installed the base blocks making sure they were plum with my corner blocks. If you don’t have an 8 foot level, this can be hard. Do your best but ultimately make sure they are sit level. If they are at too much of an angle you’ll have trouble filling the gap later.
Again, I lined them up and nailed them in all 4 corners of the block.
Install the Top Piece
Measure the space between your two corner blocks. Using a chop saw (or compound miter saw) cut your top piece to this measurement. Make sure it’s level and nail it in a few places.
Install the Vertical Pieces
I worked on several doors. To keep myself sane, I always did the left side of the door frame first. Then I wouldn’t forget which side I had just measured and where my piece went. Measure the distance between the corner block and the base block and cut your piece to this length.
Hold the piece in place with one nail. Then, use a level and check for plum. Once it’s plum, shoot a few more nails into the piece of molding.
Once I’ve completed all the pieces and I’m happy with the placement, I shoot a few more nails to make sure it’s well attached to the wall. Sometimes a nail will hit the dead space so it doesn’t grab on to anything.
Finishing Touches
Now that everything is nailed in tight, it’s time to make it all pretty pretty!
Tap any nail heads all the way in if they stick out a bit. Use an awl if necessary. The cover with nail filler. Since I like my trim crisp white, I use white nail filler. Since I pre-painted all the pieces, I can dab a touch of paint over the nail filler and be done with that! This is what happens when you do an new project, the old always looks older…. guess the paint on the doors wasn’t truly white!
Don’t forget to caulk! Caulk will fill in any gaps between the wall and the molding or the molding and the door jam. If there are any little gaps between the molding and the corner or base blocks, carefully put some caulk in there as well. I use white paintable caulk that dries in 30 minutes. It’s cheap and does the trick. Be sure to paint over the caulk with your trim color since over time the caulk can yellow and look different than the rest of the molding. If you aren’t good at getting a clean line when caulking, consider using one of those tools that pushes the caulk to where it belongs and scrapes away the extra. It’s worth a few extra bucks to have the caulk look nice.
Stand Back and Enjoy!
With a little planning this can easily be done in a weekend! I painted the molding one Friday evening. Then Saturday morning I put on a second coat. The old was removed while the paint dried in the morning. Later that afternoon (after doing several other things), I installed the molding. I ran out of time so I filled nail holes and caulked Sunday morning. Sunday after church I touched up the paint and was done!
I’m sure if I had dedicated a whole weekend I could have done all the door frames in the whole house without a problem. But, I’m spreading the cost out a bit. Part of why I went with the kits was how cost effective they were, but my local home center only ever seems to have a half dozen of them at a time anyways. Next time I’m there I’ll pick up some for the rest of the upstairs and get the job finished.
There we go, all painted a fresh coat of white paint now!
Here are a few of my other home improvement projects:
What home improvement projects have you done that have updated the look of your house?
Affiliate links may be included to products similar to what I used.
