New door casing help

[Laurie]

OK, so we *finally* got a new pre-hung door hung with everything plumb and level. Closes like a dream and stays closed unlike its predecessor. :-) It was a bitch to hang because it appears the WALL is twisted (this place had foundation issues in the past that at one point were addressed - but it appears this particular wall has remaining issues.)

So now the drywall sticks out about 3/4" beyond the door frame in some places, and in others, the frame extends about 1/2" beyond the drywall. Unfortunately, generally on the same stretch of wall.

Should I try to reduce the drywall that sticks out so the casing can go on flush? Build up the drywall that is too deep?

Any help would be much appreciated - right now the casing is just sitting there while I try to come up with a clue as to how to finish THIS project!

Laurie

[RickH]

1) When the door jamb edge drifts outside the drywall, I usually take my power planer and back plane the case trim so the jamb nestles into the trim and the trim can lay flat. 2) When the door jamb edge drifts inside the drywall, then I scribe and cut a filler to "extend the jamb" using some flat oak stock so that the jamb comes flush, then I just case trim the door as usual as though my filler were the real edge of the jamb, after its all stained you can hardly tell there is a scribed filer in there.

Slanted walls are a pain around door jambs but the job of a trim carpenter is to always to trick the eye and fool people into thinking "its straight", #1 above is usually easy, #2 is harder, you seem to have both issues.

Playing around with the drywall, for me at least, is much harder than scribing and planing.

[Meat Plow]

Easier to take the casing down IMO. There really is no adopted or preferred way to do this so you have creative license.

I just did a door in a wall built on 2x3's instead of 2x4's. Part of the difference was made up on the outside since we can be creative when we re-side the house and part was made up on the inside where part of the casing stuck out and part was recessed very similar to your situation.

Oh and by the way this wall was a full inch and a half out of plumb inward from the bottom to the top of the casing and was twisted also. Quite a pain in the ass to install.

[Laurie]

Glad it's not an unusual situation - first door I'd ever hung and it took me quite a few fruitless attempts before we decided to just hang the blasted thing so IT was level and the location of the walls in relation to it a secondary consideration.

Sure explains why the prior door was so messed up! I think this door would be about an inch and a half out at least! Benefit is on one side of the door trim butts up to a corner with facing trim and on the open side it's into a corner, so I only really have the two sides to worry about.

Think I'll try the planing/scribing method that Rick suggested and see if I can camouflage it.

Thanks - Laurie