Projects NOT to start on Sunday afternoons...

I know it's Fall when the silicone caulk around my front doorway starts to get cracked and looking bad.  So I was going to remove and replace it.  I was going to have a lovely little simple post for you about removing and replacing the silicone caulk seal around my front door.  And it was going to be a quick project.  I've done it before, and truly, you can finish this project in a few hours.

Cracked

Bumpy

Not a good look.

Last time, I used an exacto knife to cut the silicone caulk seal, and a big screwdriver to pull out the old caulk, but that was hard to control and I wound up scoring the wood trim.  This time, I had a new tool, which worked PERFECTLY. (This tool is grody well-used because of its previous heroics in a dining room chair project that I am still sort of recovering from, but will share here soon.)

Say hello to my little friend...

I found that scoring the edges of the silicone on either side with the pokey end (on the right), and pulling out the glob with the dull hook side (on the left) worked best.

Out with the old...

For whatever reason, our builder had a LOT of faith in silicone caulk, and left a huge gap between our trim pieces.  

Just add caulk.

But even that was fine.  What stopped this really simple project was this.

Hmmm, what could be under this paint?

Which turned into this.

Yep, that entire board is rotted through.  And WET.

And this.

Yep, up here, too.

Of course.

We figured that since the big piece of trim right above the doorway isn't flush with the siding, water may have been getting in through the giant gap there, letting the wood get wet and rot away.  So I hopped up on my ladder and squeezed some silicone caulk into the gap.  Hopefully, that will prevent future rot. 

Mind the gap.

Globs of silicone caulk

Smoothed with a specialized tool finger.
Nobody can see up there, so it didn't need to be pretty.  

But that seal won't regenerate the wood that has rotted away already.  So we'll have to replace it.  Fortunately, that wood isn't too expensive or difficult to replace.  Unfortunately, we won't know until we get it off if the rot managed to get into any structural elements.

Until next weekend, my front door looks sad and gappy.  And even my quick projects come off half finished...