Earlier this week we had new carpets installed in our house. The new carpet is much thicker than the old one, and is remarkably soft underfoot. Unfortunately, this new thickness resulted in a number of doors dragging. Not only did this make opening and closing some of the doors difficult, but it wasn't doing any favors for our heating and air conditioning units. It turns out that door gaps are fairly important from an HVAC perspective.

I decided to try my hand at trimming these doors myself, given that I have the tools. It turned out that this process was fairly simple, and I got great results. Here are some photos showing how I went about doing this:

There were a few things I learned through the process that I wish I had known before I started:

• The strip of melamine I used was too narrow. A few times, my clamps got in the way and resulted in a bulge or two that I had to sand out.
• Using a strip of painter's tape along the straightedge is key. I made the mistake of omitting this on the first door I did, and the saw's foot marred the door.
• I tried using a gap of only 3/8 of an inch on one door, but that ended up being too short. A 1/2 inch gap is much better.

This was a fairly easy project to do, though it was somewhat time consuming. It's nice, however, to have it completed. And I did it myself!