How To Install Window & Door Trim/Casing

hi I'm Shannon from house improvements calm and I just want to show you how to measure and cut and install the trim around your windows and doors so basically what we've got here is a small bedroom we've got a long not so tall window over on this side and we've got a closet door behind the camera area so first of all I'm just going to start with the window I'll show you how to mark it out measure it and then we'll Lush do the door and then we'll go out and cut come back and install it so the first thing I would start out with is you always want your trim to leave a little bit of a reveal on around the framework here and I like to use about a quarter of an inch some people will use an eighth but I don't know I just I'm used to using quarters so that's what I'm going to do so what I what I do is in each corner of the window I'm going to take a tape measure and a pencil I'm just going to measure back put a little mark at a quarter of an inch and this will just assist once I have the trim in here just assist lining it up if you had a sliding little t-square something you could set a quarter and go around and Mark everything either way we've got the blinds still on in in this case so we've got to work around them a little bit but not a big deal so I'm just going to simply go around put some little marks where quarter inches so that we know when we're putting the trim on that that's where I need to line up two before I nail it so I don't know I'm going every couple feet or something like that just to give you a guideline okay so we've gone around mark dollar reveal at a quarter inch and we got that done now we're going to measure take the actual measurements for the window so because I know what my reveal is I can add that on to my measurement so I'm simply just going to measure from the inside edges of the frames top and bottom side to side and then add a half an inch which will give the quarter inch on each each reveal so what I'm actually getting is a measurement if this is your piece of trim with the miters cut on it I'm actually getting these two short corners are the two points that I'm getting the measurements for okay so like I said I'm just budding into the inside of the upper jamb I've got 26 inches there so I'm going to make that 26 and a half I'm just going to write that down okay so 26 and 1/2 now I'm going to measure from the inside of this side casing to the inside of that side casing just come right over here and I've got 85 and 1/2 okay so that makes it 86 I'll just double-check that the other the top and this other side are the same they should be ones 26 I'll just grab a stool check the top that's 85 now so yeah all the measurements are are the same generally they should be but you know if you're dealing with maybe an older window or something that's out a square they could possibly be different if it's not too much different then you're better off to cut all your pieces the same so that your actual miters line up properly and everything looks right you can kind of cheat a little bit on reveal if you need to make it seem square okay so we're over at the closet we've got an opening here this is sliding doors when it's when it's finished so same thing I'm going to use the quarter inch reveal so I'm just going to mark that out over here on the side jamb in a few spots and again this is just a guide so that you can line everything up try to keep it straight and obviously the trim is going to go right down to the floor and then this trim is coming up to here actually I'm just going to work this down here okay and on this side and this will all get painted up nice when we're done okay so now measurement wise so now that I've got those marks there I can I can also use those if you want as your reference point if you're not you know not wanting to do the math or whatever so on the door like I said the trim is going to sit right down on the floor and I can just simply measure up to my first mark near this corner so I've got 78 and 1/8 and I always draw myself just a little quick little sketch so I've got my door frame 78 and what the heck do they say you know 78 and eight sometimes these will be different so that's why I draw myself the little map check this side and see this 178 and 1/4 I'll mark that on my little picture now I want to measure for the header piece so I'm going to measure inside the inside just like I did on the window add half an inch and it should be ok so I've got 46 and 1/8 so I'm going to make that 46 and 5/8 - the short point I'll mark that on my map if you kind of have a system and you use that set like always measure from the same place as always write the numbers you know to the inside short points whatever your system is do that all the time then you won't shouldn't have as many problems if you start switching your system around then you're just going to mix yourself up so so I've got the measurements for all those I think we can go out and cut them up and bring them back ok so the trim we're going to be installing today is an MDF molding it's painted white it's about a three and a quarter inch profile there's lots of different ones to choose from so it really doesn't matter on what trim you've chosen the basic concept of measuring cutting and installing it basically should be the same so this is just chunk of what we're going to put in beforehand just to make it simpler so I wasn't swinging 14-foot long pieces of trim around the camera and cameraman I just roughly cut it to a reasonable length that's easier to deal with so what I'm going to do I guess I'm going to cut the door first just because I've got that trim sitting here right on the edge of the table first so as you remember you picture a doorframe we've got a right side a left side and then the piece that goes across the header so really really doesn't matter what you cut first to be quite honest I'm going to cut the right-hand side so you always want to make sure that the bottom the bottom edge that's on the floor was cut straight especially in this case we're going down on hardwood floor on carpet it's not as noticeable because you're pushed down into the carpet a little bit so that's going to be my bottom edge I'm just going to lay it here by the saw and I wanted 78 and 1/8 so I'm hooking right on the bottom edge I'm measuring on the inside edge of the profile this side this is the outside this is the inside okay so all my measurements were taken to the inside edges so I'm going to measure up that 78 and 1/8 I'm going to put a pencil line right on the edge here okay now that cut is going to be that's a 90 degree turn in the trim so we want to basically take 90 degrees divide it in half which is 45 degrees so you're going to take and set your saw at 45 degrees remember I'm cutting the when you're facing the doorframe I'm cutting the right hand side right now as you as you face it so make sure you got the saw going the right direction so that you get you got the left's of the right side not the left side and I've got my pencil mark down there I can if you're not 100% sure you can kind of get right down here and just without obviously turning the saw on you can kind of eyeball yourself up get yourself close if anything you want to be just a hair long make your first cut and then you can always shorten it up a little bit after once you should cut it too short you're usually hooped you're not going to stretch the wood so kind of that'd be a good hint especially the first few cuts cut it a little bit longer you can always nibble a little more off afterwards so so I'm just going to make this cut okay I'm going to get rid of this piece of scrap so it doesn't cause us any problems on the saw and I am just a maybe 1/16 long so I'm going to slide this over just a hair take that off okay so that should be good so this would be my right hand side as I'm facing the doorway notice how the angle is okay pretty basic so we've got that piece cut I'm going to cut now the left-hand side make sure my bottom square and I'm going to measure on the inside this one was 78 and 1/4 placing my mark right on that edge because that's that's the point that we actually measured to on the frame there inside now I obviously can't cut it this way or it's going to be the mitre is going to be going the wrong way so I would need to rotate the saw around to 45 degrees the other direction get things lined up so that I'm close okay my hands are back that's another video we should do is proper use of a miter saw but anyways just make sure your hands are back get rid of our scrap piece and that cut was good I was right on the line there you can just faintly see it possibly you can zoom in that close but anyways you can see it's right on so that's our left side now our next piece a little bit trickier but not rocket science this is our header piece so it's going to have a miter on each end so we need to start out with a miter to have a place to measure from so I'm going to just do it on this end here so I'm just going to line up the sauce so I get a nice miter 45 degrees okay so this will give us a point to measure from now this is always a little tricky one one way of doing it is if you have a bench like this or a table or something where you can stretch your tape out we saw it right beside the trim and it can sit there without falling off it makes it a lot easier the measurement we're looking for is 46 and five-eighths so a little little trick here I'm going to actually set this into my tape at 48 and five-eighths which is two inches longer than we want what then we wanted the reason for that is then I can go down to this end and at the two inch mark I can make my my pencil the line if you were to mark line this up at the 46 and five-eighths rate out on this point right down here if you were to do that now I've got to come back here and you know you're trying to guess exactly where that is it's just easier to line it up right on right on an increment rate on the tape measure so you know each their own whatever you want to do but that's what I do okay so now this we've got our mitre this way on this other end we need to turn the saw this is where some people will get confused to making sure they're they've got the angle going the right direction same as before just going to get down get myself lined up real close like I said if anything a little long make my cup okay and again we're right on there so there's no need to to make another cut so there's our header piece it's got a Meyer on both ends obviously just to give you the idea on the when you're facing at the right hand and these pieces are going to go together like that okay so there's our door pieces cutter we're just going to set those to the side and then I'm going to get the window piece going so now all the window pieces in this case are going to have a 45 or a miter at each end okay so we've got to get ourselves to that point where we can measure so we need to get one mitre started on the end I'm actually going to do that on every piece here right off the start okay so I've got them all started so we have a mitre on one end we need to do that measurement and it's very similar to the headpiece we did on the on the other one these longer ones are going to be 86 so I'm like I did before I'm going to actually stretch this rate out to e8 which is two inches longer and then mark at the two inch spot should be right there okay and that's going to be my cut on that one so now all these rest of these cuts are going to be from the other end of the board I need to turn the saw now when you're using the miter saw you want to make sure you've got your wood push straight back against the fence and tight down you know you don't want it on an angle or it's going to throw the the actual angle you're trying to cut off hey that one's good so I think you get the idea here I'm just going to show you once more this measuring thing so we wanted 86 like I've said a hundred times now I mark it two inches longer or don't mark it but I place my tape two inches longer at this end and then I mark it at two inches here it's going to make sure nothing moved we should be good okay so just do that on the remainder of your pieces and then we'll be right back inside to show you how to install it okay so we're back inside something that's probably worth mentioning is obviously just watch me cut that on a with a sliding compound miter saw not everybody's going to have one of those it's not 100% necessary that you have one to do this job if you're going to do a lot of windows I'd recommend at least borrowing or renting one you're going to save you a lot of time but you could certainly cut that with a just with a wooden miter box and a handsaw that would be kind of your other option really skill saw or anything like that really isn't going to do a very nice job but if you got a miter box like a handheld mayor box with a handsaw you can definitely do it like that and to do two three windows whatever probably wouldn't be that big of a deal if you're doing five six seven eight whatever a bunch of baseboard or something you're probably going to want to either invest in one or more electric miter box so so we've got that we've got our trim inside I'm going to use a brad nailer which is air-powered brad nailer to attach these trims you could also hand nail this was finishing nails again just depends on how much of this you're going to do seems like lots of people have the Brad nailers now and a compressor so you may be able to even just borrow one so so we're going to start out basically I'm going to hold the trim in place I'm going to be nailing through this area of the trim right into the door frame after I get that all tacked into place then we'll nail a little further out back into the wall if need be you know if it's a little floppy or something so I'm using inch and 3/16 nails it's really going to depend on the thickness of your trim but basically like here I've got about a half inch of thickness in the trim here so I want to be at least three quarters of an inch into the wood or you know whatever you're nailing into so so I'm using inch and 3/16 so pretty simple just sit this right down on the floor lining it up with your pencil mark that you had down there slide the top over line it up with the pencil mark your hat up here put a nail in about two inches down okay so that's basically going to hold that standing there now just work your way along looking for the pencil marks that you had placing a nail after near each one okay just like that so we've got our first side piece tacked into place now what I'm going to do is put the header piece across there and what I'm also going to do is add a bit of glue at this mitre that we're going to form right here so this piece is just going to sit right on top a good idea just to double-check that your measurement sir or your cuts are good which this one isn't actually about an inch long so I'll have to recut that all right so I went out and cut this to the right length this time and we'll just double-check now it's a lot better I'll just stand this up there and get an idea yeah everything should be okay so see even I can make mistakes okay so we've got that dull checked as I said before we're going to put a bit of glue on this mitre just to help hold things together a little bit better so I'm going to set it up on there I'm going to get this corner all nice it's nice as I can got now I'm just going to make sure that height wise everything works out fine should be okay there I'll put a nail in the middle just like so okay so we've got that started there actually what something else you want to do have to do it from the top if you can see here on this corner everything is not quite lining up the way it should as far as flush across here so I'm going to pull them out flush and carefully put a brad nail down through the top just to help hold them just like that so now the nice and flush okay going back to this corner I'm going to put some glue on the top of this mitre on this side piece you don't need a whole bunch of glue there but just a little bit of a bead there stand this in place you want to line the spire up here as best as it will okay just like that and then we're just going to work our way down the doorframe using the marks we have so I don't know I'm nailing about every 15 16 inches apart we just want to make sure it's on there well and again I'm going to go up and nail that corner flush these up just like that got a little bit of glue squirting out there okay so we've got that on there you can see things are a little bit there's a little bit of movement there so I'm going to switch to some longer nails reason I'm going longer is the trim is slightly thicker out on this edge plus I've got to go through the drywall before I hit any framing so I'm basically going through about an inch and a quarter of material before I actually get back to the framing that I want to attach to and I'm not going to go crazy on the nails here but I'm going to place one about six inches up from the floor one about in the middle here and one a foot or so down just to strengthen this up a little bit we've got the door the door jamb right here we've got a little bit of space and then we've got an inch and a half of wood here so I should be able to nail right along the side of this rib without any problems and hit into some wood okay same thing across the top just a couple just like so okay now before I go to the window I'm going to show you just here on the door what I like to use is a wall repair compound just like a little container wall patch and I fill all my nail holes and touch up the miter joints here because this is painted and but the inside is a brown color it doesn't take much of a crack here to show through Brown right away so I just simply put a little bit on my finger just go over to the nail hole give it a rub and a wipe with a with a different finger really easy to do with this stuff if you do this there's no point in sanding after if you get it wiped off really nice with your other finger then when that dries you can come back and touch up all the paint on that so that's what I do on the nail holes on this joint up here really the same thing just use my finger to smear it in here if I used a putty knife or you know something like that try to smooth this around it's just going to scratch the trim or so that's why I use a finger my finger will go and shape to the contour of the trim as well a little bit thick better so I just put it on fairly liberally make sure I get all my cracks filled in and then wipe it off if you have a damp rag you can give it a quick wipe with a damp rag too to get off the excess and again if you get it cleaned off good enough there's no point in doing any sanding afterwards so it just makes it look better now I can go back and paint that when I'm done touch everything up also another thing I like to do is in this corner here where I've left the reveal all the way around I'll take a latex caulking and just put a small bead of caulking in here just get any spaces or any gaps or anything it just seals it off when you've got it all painted up it just looks like this is all one piece and it just makes a really clean nice looking look so obviously this frame needs to be painted again anyway so I will caulk this paint everything up and it'll look really good okay so that's the door frame we're going to just flip to the other side of the room do the window and go from there okay so just to speed things up I've already attached the top piece of casing there and really this is a lot like what you just watch me do on the door we've got our side pieces I'm going to simply glue the corners I can get some glue out of here so I want to slide it up into position into the top one that's already there my mitre lined up I've switched back to the shorter nails again okay I just stuck three nails in there so now I'm just going to go over to the other side just get this one hanging in place so again though I need some glue zip over here okay and I haven't put the bottom nail in so that way I can still move this a little bit if I need to for to adjust for the length of this bottom piece I'm going to put some glue on the bottom bottom piece ends I should say up and then I'll go over to this end if you can just end up for me this piece kind of long so I just getting some assistant hold that end up I'm going to get this end lined up in place and then I can come over to this side and I can MacGyver this into place got now I can just go along my bottom get my bottom all lined up for my reveal okay I'm going to switch to the longer nails of the window I'm going to have a header up there so I can you know I should be able to have lots of wood to nail into it okay just like that this side here is being a little stubborn okay so we've got that nailed into place and like I said before we can run a bead of caulking in here afterwards in this case on this window it's actually pretty nice pretty pretty tight to window at this end and I probably got a eighth inch or better gap down there so you know that's where the caulking comes in too nicely to finish that up I'll go back and put line these corners all up put a nail in the corners and then that should be all done so I'll just quickly do that I'm going to switch back to the shorter nails just want to do it before the glue looks for the glue starts drying it's already started to set up there a little bit okay so all I have to do now is go around fill in the nail holes fill in the miters make them look good do that caulking and then give it a coat of paint touch-up all the paint and I'd be complete so you know if you're using a molding that's not painted maybe you're using oak or maple or something that's stained really it's really the same idea although when you're doing your filling you're going to want to color match the putty that you're using to whatever color you've got the trim stained or finished in but basically the process is all the same so I think I think we've pretty much covered all the basis and we've got lots other videos on our youtube channel on our website at house improvements comm we've also got some articles so there's links there through to the videos as well to get to youtube we do have the forum page on the website that you can go to and ask any questions that you might have and myself or somebody else on there we'll do our best to answer them as quickly as we can so I think as far as installing window and door trim I think that pretty much gives you the basic idea what you got to do and thanks for watching

Channel: HouseImprovements

Views: 893,166

Keywords: door, window, casing, molding, interior, house, home, bedroom, doors, closet, install, cut, measure, trim, baseboard, moulding, Molding (decorative)

Id: 0VfXKQIgs54

Length: 32min 8sec (1928 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 10 2013