The trim at the bottom of the door that leads from the finished to the unfinished part of our basement rotted, leaving holes in it.

Holes in door trim from rotted wood.

A “proper repair” would involve removing and replacing the boards with the rotted ends.  Given the rest of the wood was structurally sound, I opted to repair it instead.

Removal of Rotted Wood 

I used a chisel and flat blade screwdriver and hemostat to remove all the loose, rotted wood.

Filling the Dead Space 

To limit the amount of wet filler material I would need, I filled the majority of the Dead Space with 6mm Depron foam (I use that material to build and repair RC aircraft).  I measured And cut strips of it using a cutting board, #11 X-acto knife and metal straight edge.  Some areas required one layer, and others required 2 layers.  The goal was to fill most of the dead space but leave room for a layer of a wet filler.

Cutting depron strips for fill

Depron strips inserted for backing

The first layer of “wet filler” I used was Bondo auto body filler.  This creates a hard shell on top of the foam.  It is the same type of structure used in helmet construction. The problem with Bondo is it dries really fast, and you risk roughening up the finish if you try to smooth it after it hardens too much.

After the Bondo dried I sanded it and then applied a layer of wood filler on top of it, better smoothing it down.

Layer of wood filler applied

Final Finishing

After that, I painted it with some semi-gloss paint left over from painting a banister.  It has a color close to the color of the surrounding wood.  It doesn’t cover completely in one coat.  That was used to advantage, using brush strokes to create a partial faux wood finish.

Finished (door closed)

Repair Rotted Wood on Door Trim

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