Floor trim..... as window sill aprons?

Yeah, all the kids are doing it these days. They're seeing these massive piles of 7 1/4" floor trim in 16 foot lengths piled up in the dining room, adn they say to themselves, "I wonder what else I can do with all of this trim besides put it on the floor?

And then they get these funny ideas....
Like window aprons, door trims, and corner kick plates.

It all starts with cutting the 45 degree angles. We had to borrow a 12" compound miter saw for the cuts because the 10" saw can only make cuts of up to 6".

The first length that needs to be cut for an apron is the general length. For my purposes, I measured the length of the sill, then subtracted 2" (one inch for each side). Each edge needs to be cut at a 45 degree angle, with the front (finished) surface being longer than the back surface on each side. We call these 'inside cuts'.

N.B.: In communicating these cuts to DH, we started to get into trouble by not having a general terminology so we could understand each other. We decided to call a 45 degree angle cut where the back length was longer than the front an 'inside cut' (i.e. a cut for a floor board that would be in a regular corner).

A 45-degree angle where the front was longer than the back an 'outside cut', (i.e. a cut for a floor board where the corner pokes out into a room.)

The apron needs two inside cuts, one on each side, and if you make the measurements and cuts very carefully, you can take the cut pieces for the mitered ends for the opposite ends.

In the pictures below, I just made the cuts off of spare pieces, because, frankly, I wasn't too good at getting the exact angle at first, so I made a lot of extra cuts in order to get it right.


To make miter cuts, I use a razor blade to mark the exact angle measurement, lining up the blade edge with the back corner. Then I used a carpenter's square to line up the marked angle, and scored a line down the front. This would be the line I needed to cut off to get he end piece, just barely leaving the cut line visible on the saw.
































When you make the cuts off of a spare piece of trim, you need a left and a right for each window sill apron.

If you can cut the miters off of of both sides of a straight cut board with enough accuracy, you can use the piece you cut off of the left side to attach to the right, and vice-versa.

















And then my new best friend.... the glue gun.

















Attach the end pieces with a length of glue from a glue gun... and be quick about it or it will set up on you and you won't be able to make any adjustments. I highly recommend practicing gluing your boards together, because you will only have about 3 seconds until the glue sets permanently if you use MDF.

















A small gap between the two angles didn't matter much. I took the round handle of a screwdriver and rubbed it back and forth along the sharp edge to 'roll' the edges inward a bit, and then would fill any leftover gap with caulk if necessary, and then the paint would cover the rest.















Once I had all six aprons cut and glued, I then use my circular saw to cut the height down to fit under neath the window sill, upside down.

In about 30 minutes, I'll upload the final pictures, but in the meantime, the batteries are kaput., and it's attached to a charger.

Until then.....


EDIT: OK, I'm back.

Here are the window aprons, as promised....



















I've spackled the nail holes and caulked around any gaps, but it needs another coat of semi-gloss to finish things up. So far so good.....