How to Trim Out a Window

When installing window casing inold houses, Tom often has to contend with walls that dip and bulge, causing gaps between the trim and wall. He can't ignore these impoerfections, but he doesn't fill them with caulk. Instead, Tom uses wood filler strips. "I like to leave a nice clean edge for the painter," he says.

To make them, he first rips a scrap piece of casing to a width of 1 inch and as long as the casing is high. He sets the legs of a compass to span the largest wall-to-casing gap (as shown in "Fill in the Gap" 1, far left). He then transfers that distance to the face of the scrap wood (as shown in "Fill in the Gap" 2). Next, he places the strip perpendicular to the casing at its outside edge, resets the compass to the distance between the largest gap and the mark on the scrap, and scribes the profile of the wall onto the scrap piece (as shown in "Fill in the Gap" 3). After cutting along that line with a jigsaw, he applies carpenter's glue to the profiled scrap piece and slides it into the gap so wall and trim marry perfectly (as shown in "Fill in the Gap" 4). "With a light sanding and paint, the joint disappears," Tom says.

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