Garage Door Trim Replacement

Garage doors are completely exposed to the elements which cause water damage through cracks and the splitting of the wood that makes up your trim. If you have noticed those signs mentioned above, there’s a good chance that its time to replace your trim.
Painting garage door trim without first replacing it can lead to several issues in the long run. For that reason, if you’re thinking of repainting your garage or selling your home, updating your garage trim is an easy way to up your curb appeal.
In this article, we’ll teach you what to expect when a professional painter comes to repair your trim and updated your garage color. Let’s take a look!

Garage Door Trim Replacement

If you are having a professional painter come to replace your garage door trim before they start painting, they will have a step-by-step process to complete it successfully. This is what it should look like.

Remove Current Trim

First, they have to remove the older, damaged trim. They will take a blade to cut through the caulking to help minimize the amount of damage. This is especially helpful for those who live in Arizona, stucco housing.
Next, they should take a tool such as a cat’s paw or screwdriver with a hammer to begin to pry the trim away. You may see a minor amount of damage, but they will repair it with the new trim.
As the garage door trim comes down, you’ll see a rubber piece start to come loose with it. Originally, trim was made out of wood, so you could see wood. Nowadays, it’s a composite which fairs much better.
Once they remove all of the trim, the old caulking or excess stucco will be scraped off. This will help the new trim pieces to have a tight fit.
There could also be a furring strip. This is important so that the nails will stay for the replacement trim.
If your house doesn’t have a furring strip that extends to the very bottom of the garage door, you’ll want to make sure your professional is using a heavy-duty adhesive. You will probably want them to use that either way. This is often the most common place that trim will fail by peeling away.

Installing the New Trim

Now that they have removed the old trim and the garage has been pressure washed, a two to three-inch strip will be painted around the edge where the new trim will lay down. That needs to be left to dry for a couple of hours.
Painting garage door trim is a precaution in case of garage shifts in the future. This way there won’t be a white line showing on your garage. Instead, if the garage shifts, the color that is showing will match the current color of your garage.
When the paint is dry, they will take measurements starting from the top. They will end by measuring the sides after placing the new piece of trim at the top. Otherwise, the measurements would be a quarter to a half-inch off.
With a miter saw, the new trim is cut to size. Then, using an electric nail gun, they will tack it up with finishing nails.
From there, they will measure and cut the sides and place those in the same fashion as the top. The trim is just held in place temporarily.
Taking that heavy-duty construction adhesive to the bottom portion of the side trim, they will bond it into place before nailing. These nails are placed every four or five inches.
Once it has been tacked, a bead of caulk will be spread down the line of all the sides and cracks where the pieces meet. The caulk will be firmly pressed into the cracks and left to dry for about a day.

Painting Garage Door & Trim

Now that you have new trim in place, you’re ready to paint it if you so choose. Painting your garage doors can bring a lot of character and curb appeal to your home!
You don’t have to include the trim in your paint job if you’d like a pop of white to stay there as a border to whatever color you paint the garage. However, it could be nice seeing how white can discolor quickly and easily.
You can have this project done by professionals or you can attempt to do it yourself. We can let you know what to expect either way.

Professional Painting

We will come to your home to scope out the project and develop a plan. Then we will draft up a proposal based on the size of the job and what you are needing. For example, they may need to replace your trim as we talked about above.
If you would like, we can have our professional color consultant come out to help you make your decision. We are even able to give you digital renderings of your home.
Another bonus of a professional color consultant is that they can work with your HOA. Often, HOA’s have specific regulations of what color they allow for your home or even garage.
Once you’ve selected your color, your crew leader will go over all the details of your proposal with you. You’ll receive a preproduction inspection report from the project manager after that.
The crew will then start their preparation including pressure washing and any repairs you discussed. This is when they would be replacing your garage door trim.
The next part of the process is when the painting will begin. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days to complete a garage door project.

Final Thoughts

Covering up damaged or worn garage door trim with paint will only delay the replacement of the trim. Replacing garage door trim is a straight forward process that should be considered when you are preparing to have your home painted. Contact Crash of Rhinos Painting to get a free proposal to paint your home.