Good morning! I finished up my garage door molding yesterday and would like to give some tips and tricks to get it done fast (It took me two days)!
Shopping list:
- 2-3 boards of pressure treated / weatherproof wood. You will need to measure your current opening and find the exact same thickness and length at home depot. NOTE: Depending on what molding you get, make sure you subtract that from the thickness of the wood boards. You will gain an extra 1/2" if you choose the molding I did.
- Molding/ trim - I found this mixed in at home depot with the other "wood" trim. I chose a composite / rubber trim to prevent rotting.
- Pry bar
- Hammer
- Caulk - suitable for outside / PAINTABLE!
- Utility knife - for cutting the current caulk / fixing spots where garage door might touch later on.
- 3" common nails
- Safety goggles
- Palm sander
- Tape measurer
- Nail gun / air compressor
- Miter saw OR other saw to cut the molding and wood. IF you do not have one, home depot has a saw in their lumber department! Take your measurements with you!
Directions:
1. Remove old molding and wood (if necessary) with pry bar and hammer (or mallet).
2. Measure the opening as well as the wood pieces that you will need to buy. Mine was 17 ft long by 7 ft high, two car garage.
3. Purchase all of the necessary tools listed above. If you go back to my post titled "Wainscot Paneling" you can see what tools I purchased.
4. If you are keeping some of the wood and not replacing, make sure you take the palm sander to it to get rid of all the chipped paint. I did not replace my upper board, so I did this and painted white (with a can of outdoor paint I had laying around).
5. Cut your molding and wood to length with the miter saw, note that the saw has a all-purpose blade on it so it cut the "composite" molding just fine. The little rubber part was hard for it to cut through but it had no problem otherwise. I like to live on the edge with no shoes... but I would recommend you wear WORK BOOTS for safety. Sam almost stepped on a nail from one of the old boards and I ended up with e 1/8" piece of steel in my foot later on that day.
6. Use your 3" common nails to put up the wood boards on sides and top. You might need a second person to assist if you are replacing the top.
7. Plug in your air compressor and load with long enough nails to go through the molding and wood.
NOTE: Make sure you shut your garage door before you hang the molding... I didn't do this first and the garage door kept getting hung up on part of the composite board... hence needing the utility knife to shred away until it did close.
20 minutes of trial and error....
8. Caulking - use window/door caulking suitable for outside. I filled in any voids/cracks around the molding/wood. I had a gap up top and we filled that with caulk as well. My camera died otherwise I would show you a video of the process ;). I also used non-paintable caulk.. which I will have to fix eventually.....
NOTE: The corner caulking was Sam's job ;) Hence the imperfections.
Thanks for reading!