ok… i have aprox 79″ x 103″ aprox 14″ thick full  brick openings with cast iron header…  non of these are plumb or square… this is where i’m install’n my double french door units i’m building most of the units i’m building end up needing a  65 x 98.25 r/o…

i’m setting these as flush as i can to the inside so that i can use 1x stock to case out the door with overlap onto the brick…  so i have about an 8″ trim on each side of the door unit… the ceilings are  11ft+  so for the head trim  i had some marginal 8ft 1×12’s   which through selection and carefull cutting i ripped to 7.25 with a 4″ drop

i picked the best 82″ of the 7.25 and the best 87″ of the 4″ drop… the 4″ gets nailed & glued to the the worst  edge of the 7.25 piece and then with some left over 3″ crown i trim it out covering the worst parts of the material… with 6 miter cuts  and some 1×12 stock that was all but trash i have a pretty nice looking “custom” header thats to scale for the room and looks… ok good…  i built 3 in the first run… took 1 hr total… which included fill’n the nail holes (paslode trim nailer) and prime’n & back prime’n (i keep a 4″ mini roller in a pan of latex exterior primer that i can keep covered)

This is not fine cabinet work… but after the ripping i hand plane the edges that will show and  ease all the edges with my hand plane with a nice little 45… my crown miters are tight and glued…  for the time and zero material investment I think i’m adding value… not that it will increase the selling price of the condos BUT with just 2 of them installed…  they were commented on even by the guys working and by one of my bankers that dropped by… 

I guess it’s just detail people don’t expect to see in a “warehouse loft”   you guys and I know there ain’t squat to it… but ain’t it weird what people see and think “detail & quality”

just thought i’d post this since i had so many comments about something  i did on a whim that actully was less work than doing it about any other way…

 oh yeah… the overhang on each side from the top 1×4 and where the crown wraps the corner hides the cast iron header edges that  are below the plane of the exposed wall brick… which would have looked funky if left exposed… and it would have looked bad/ out of scale to have the 7″ header trim wide enough to cover…

p