Step by Step: Adding Window and Door Surrounds

“We turned this home exterior into a lodge-style look, so the Fypon® Stone and Timber Collection products were an ideal complement,” says Roth. “The original trim had rotted and been replaced with vinyl J-channel, which looked terrible. The urethane pieces I installed resist shrinking, splintering, rotting, and swelling, so they’re going to provide long-term beauty and lasting results for this home exterior.”

Roth chose to use his creativity and created his own custom surrounds and crosshead for the door out of urethane flat trim. “Because I was matching this trim up to log siding material I wanted a clean, simple look and fit,” says Roth. “The high-density Fypon products are so easy to work with that it was simple to cut the pieces to the exact look and size I needed.”

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Roth ordered three pieces of Fypon® Flat Trim with a woodgrain finish (FLT111-12S) plus premium millwork adhesive for the project.

2. Prior to installation, Roth painted the Fypon materials with one coat of exterior flat latex paint.

3. While the paint dried on the pieces, Roth invested an hour to install blocking around the perimeter of the window and door to match the thickness of the log siding material. The blocking, which was about 3/4” narrower than the Fypon trim width, gave him a flat surface to securely attach the Fypon trim. This also gave the appearance that the Fypon product was standing proud “on top of” the log siding material.

4. Roth trimmed out the Fypon flat stock pieces to fit around and on top of the window and door. For the crosshead over the door he cut the ends of the flat trim moulding at a slight angle to give the crosshead a bit of detail. He also cut a scrap of trim into a keystone pattern and added it to the door crosshead.

5. After dry-fitting the pieces in place, Roth then used PL Premium Construction adhesive in a squiggle pattern on the back of each piece. He secured the pieces in place to the blocking with non-corrosive deck fasteners.

6. Once installed, finishing touches included spackling in the countersunk nail areas and then latex paint touch-up. Start to finish, the window and door surround attachment took an additional hour, making this project take a total of two hours.

Tips from the Pro

According to Roth, this easy one-person project moves fast and has instant results. Using very basic woodworking tools, including a cordless screw gun, power miter saw (to cut the trim lengths), and a caulk gun, Roth was able to finish this project quickly. He offers these tips for contractors tackling any similar project:

1. Install the wood blocking even with the siding surface. This makes it very easy to install the Fypon trim around the windows.

2. Pre-finish your materials before application. The Fypon products come factory-primed, and it’s much easier to paint the products before they’re installed and then to go back and do light touch-up work afterward.

3. Use non-corrosive fasteners or deck screws so your fastener heads do not rust.