Double wide door finishing

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ex0r

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My parents just got a double wide set and opted out of the rest of the finish work as there was only a bit and we wanted to tackle it ourselves. The drywall we knocked out easy as pie.

What's left is trimming out the two doors at the marriage line. They are deeper than normal, and came with pre laminated filler strips to cover the marriage line at the door jamb. When putting the strips in place, they don't sit flush with either side of the wall. It looks like they need to be scribed. My concern with doing that is it seems hacky as once you scribe and trim one side, it'll be shown either when entering the room or leaving the room. There's trim molding that goes over it but it's got an 1/8 reveal so at least an 1/8 of particle board would be visible. My guess would be that you paint it to cover the wood but again that seems hacky.

The boards are 8.5" wide and some are scribed down as much as 7.75" on one side and none of them are a straight cut leaving jagged edges.

Any ideas?
 
As soon as I can get some I will. Posted this while not on the job site.

Since it'll be a few hours at least until I can get back there, I made a "schematic" in mspaint.

photo.png
This is set if you were standing on the roof, looking directly down at the floor where the doorway is. The left and right would be the hinge and latch sides of the door. The bottom edges would be the outside (hallway) walls of the door frame, the top edges would be the inside (room side) walls of the doorway. They aren't the same width consistently so scribing would be needed of the 8" face board that covers that seam. (labeled as varied width)

Ontop of those face boards are the actual 4" board trim board that holds the hinge and latch.
 
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So, are these pocket doors, not swinging?
 
No they are swinging doors. The two halves are the marriage line where the two halves of the double wide come together at. The average measurement is 8" wide but some areas it's less.

This photo is a single door frame of the two we need to finish.
 
Thanks, no photo.
You're 1st option, since you have the drywall off, is too adjust the framing, so you have a plumb and squared opening, and the last is to trim the doors.

You mentioned "particle board". What kind or doors are these?
 
I’m kind of following your question. A doublewide comes in two halves and when joined they often use the centerline of the house as a wall to support it while its transported so there are doors framed into each half that make a wider than normal jam and because of the inaccuracies in building and putting the halves together there are different jam widths.



If it was me and they put some kind of a temporary jam particle board in there to hold the halves together because the deal was you were going to do the finish work.



I would rip that out and make new the whole trim pieces from finished trim quality wood. If it needs a taper or scribe cut to make it come out right I would do that and then sand and paint or finish to suit.

I think the pieces you described are just something they made to cover the gap and act as a temporary covering.
 
Thanks, no photo.
You're 1st option, since you have the drywall off, is too adjust the framing, so you have a plumb and squared opening, and the last is to trim the doors.

You mentioned "particle board". What kind or doors are these?

The doors are hollow core 6 panel doors. The particle board (wrapped in laminate) is the door jamb that attaches to the framing. The drywall isn't off. All that there is to finish is the door jambs and then mount the door, but the door jambs are the ones that are 8" wide and the drywall surfaces aren't exactly 8" between them, leaving part of the jamb having to be scribed and trimmed, revealing part of the particle board underneath the laminated surface.
 
I’m kind of following your question. A doublewide comes in two halves and when joined they often use the centerline of the house as a wall to support it while its transported so there are doors framed into each half that make a wider than normal jam and because of the inaccuracies in building and putting the halves together there are different jam widths.



If it was me and they put some kind of a temporary jam particle board in there to hold the halves together because the deal was you were going to do the finish work.



I would rip that out and make new the whole trim pieces from finished trim quality wood. If it needs a taper or scribe cut to make it come out right I would do that and then sand and paint or finish to suit.

I think the pieces you described are just something they made to cover the gap and act as a temporary covering.

Exactly this. The boards don't come attached, they are laying in the middle of the living room when it comes. The instructions say that you are supposed to attach them yourself, however the problem in lies that the widths aren't consistent, and the scribed/trimmed side of the board exposes the particle board underneath. on whichever side you trimmed. Since the door casing has an 1/8 reveal, you can clearly see the particle board at least an 1/8 on that side.

The boards match the same texture/style of the actual framing for the door (hinge and latch + plus all stops), so I don't believe they are supposed to be used as a 'temporary' solution but more the final attached product.

These are the same materials a contractor would get when doing the finish work, as the manufacturer wasn't aware it was being self-installed. The setter was a third party contractor not affiliated with the manufacturer who asked if we wanted to do the remaining finish work ourselves, or we wanted him to.
 
In that case I think I would pad the drywall out a little on the least noticeable side to hold the trim out another quarter inch then after I installed the finished trim on that side there would be a gap behind it. I would fill that gap with drywall compound and paint it to match the wall color when I did the walls.



The house I live in is 150 years old and nothing is square or flat and when I redid the kitchen every window and door was a problem and they all have some compound behind the trim. You don’t even notice it.

In your case you don’t want to trim those coated jams as the rough edge will look bad.
 
In that case I think I would pad the drywall out a little on the least noticeable side to hold the trim out another quarter inch then after I installed the finished trim on that side there would be a gap behind it. I would fill that gap with drywall compound and paint it to match the wall color when I did the walls.



The house I live in is 150 years old and nothing is square or flat and when I redid the kitchen every window and door was a problem and they all have some compound behind the trim. You don’t even notice it.

In your case you don’t want to trim those coated jams as the rough edge will look bad.
The drywall came already installed to the wall. We can't add padding to it. Unless you meant ontop of it.

Some of the cuts would leave shims in some areas and up to almost an inch in other spots. The sizes are very inconsistent even vertically on a single frame.

This whole thing seems like a hacky job that I couldn't see contractors doing. Ontop of all of this there's still the actual door jam that goes ontop of this face covering.

That leads me to think though, maybe there's another way I can do this. Let me try something.
 
I think some pictures would help a lot.
I agree otherwise we are just spinning our wheels trying to guess. I did mean adding something to the outside of the drywall. First the OP mentioned eighth of an inch and that is something that should be made to look ok. Now there is an inch in question that's just too much and something was done wrong.
 
Here are the pictures. The framing, the trim board, and a piece up against one of the openings where you can clearly see the difference in widths.
 

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Well it looks like ether the manufacturing of the two halves was wrong or the guys assembling it didn’t draw the top together tight enough or didn’t shim the bottom correctly.



I’m no expert on pre-manufactured homes and how they generally account for errors or assemble them in the field. Pretty much it is what it is as I’m pretty sure it’s locked in and roofing and such is done. I first thought maybe some draw bolts to pull the top together, but my guess is it would just make a mess of the walls.



Is the problem more on one side than the other? Have you checked the wall both sides with a level?

I don’t think you want to cut that covered material so I would install it plumb and favor the side that is most visible as to flush or split the difference. I would then shim/pad the wall out to take the door trim on each side. Attach the door trim flush to the jamb with proper set back for a shadow line. Then I would stuff some foam backer rod in the crack leaving about ¾” for compound fill it a couple times, paint and call it a day.
 
The walls on both sides are level. The problem is just that the thickness isn't the same thickness as the gap it needs to fill. Ontop of that, an additional layer goes ontop of these boards that contain the hinge mortices on one side and the door latch on the other. The entire setup is confusing as there's not even room for the door stops.

My parents called the original installer today and asked if he would come install the doors so I'll take a look at what he does when he does it.

I've never seen anything like this before or else I'd have been able to tackle it no problem.

Thanks for the info guys. I'll send pictured after he's done so you can see what it looks like after if you want in case you ever come across it.
 
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