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DIY Arched Door Trim (with Flexible Molding!)

Use flexible molding to add a unique design to a door
Author Laura Gummerman

Ingredients

Instructions

  • You can decide where you want the arches to fall on your doorway, but I wanted the peephole of my door to be framed by the arch so I took a wooden 14″ wide circle I had and used it to trace a half circle above the peephole.
    You can use a large compass or a circular object to trace like I did, but just remember you are tracing the inside edge of your arched circle, so the overall width will be 2″ wider than your traced circle (each side will add 1″ of trim).
  • Once I had my half circle traced, I added some straight lines down the sides and decided where I wanted the “pill” shape to cut in half in the middle (use a level to make sure all your lines are level and straight as you trace).
    Measure your half arch at the top of your shape and cut a piece of flexible molding to that length. Find the middle of your arch and of your molding strip and nail your strip centered above your arch as you see above. Then, using a friend for help, continue to bend and arch the molding to follow your traced line and nail it in every 2-3″ as you go.
  • Make sure your nail heads are sinking in past the trim so you can fill those holes later to make them disappear… use a nail setter to drive them in further if you need to (this set is really handy). Repeat with the other side of trim so you have your curved arch ready to go.
  • Find where the mirror image of your arch should go on the bottom of the door (you can measure how far your top one is from the top of the door and use that same measurement for the bottom placement) and trace your half circle down there as well.
    Double check with a long ruler and level that your arches are directly beneath each other! I assumed from my measurements that mine were and I had to rip the bottom out and redo it as they were slightly, but noticeably, off.
  • Now it’s time to add your straight pieces! Measure how long you want your sides to be (mine were 18″ long) and cut your four side pieces that meet the arch with a normal straight across cut (or see next step for a perfected tweak if needed) and the other side at the appropriate facing 45° angle to match up with the final middle horizontal piece at the end.
    Use a level to ensure they are straight and nail into your door.
  • You can cut your trim where it meets the arch at a regular 0° angle (so no angle at all), but I found that it’s really hard to get the flexible arch to bend exactly so it fits to that angle (you can see it meets together at a slight angle in the photo above).
    I cut a few test scrap pieces at different angles until I found that cutting the straight trim at a small 7° angle was just enough to fit perfectly with my flexible molding. If you aren’t using a miter saw where you can change the angle slightly like that, then just cut it at no angle and you can fill any gap between them with wood filler.
  • And now for the final middle pieces! Measure how wide the two pieces should be and cut both sides with mirroring 45° angles. Use a level to ensure they are straight and nail into place.
  • And now it’s time to fill your nail holes with wood filler, sand then down when dry and calk the sides of your seams with caulk (optional but will make it all look seamless so I highly suggest that).
    Once it’s all sanded and dry you can paint the trim to match the door (love this rounded brush for painting anything rounded like this). This flexible molding had a bit of a harder time sticking to regular paint, so I would suggest a coat of this first on the trim so it adheres more evenly and requires less coats overall. A few coats of paint and you’re done!