Door Courtesy Light Bulb Replacement

[LoJac963]

sorry to bump an old thread but...

I'm in the process of swapping all my interior bulbs over to LED's. Now so far everything has been cake in removing the lenses minus the small step/courtesy lights at the bottom of the pillars and the door panel lights.

Has anyone removed the door panel lens before? I saw a pic from the repair manual but it doesn't show much and it seems the only other advice any one has is to remove the door panel. I'd rather not remove the door panels just to replace the tiny 194 bulbs-seems ridiculous in my mind.

I've tried everything, gently prying all around the perimeter in case there's a sweet spot to pop it out but NOTHING! Also the same is for the small opaque square lenses for the rear step lights-can't get those lenses off either!

Any help would be greatly appreciated. These are the last lenses I need to remove before I order all the LED's.

I'm coming to the conclusion the only safe way to remove the door bulbs is to pull the door panels and for the step lights it to pop the pillar trim off??