How Do You Nail Baseboards

Despite their lowly position along the floor, baseboards are ane of a business firm's defining features. If they have stature, a room becomes regal; when they are skimpy, that same space looks dowdy.

Baseboards were often three-piece affairs consisting of a flat plank, a decorative cap molding, and a rounded shoe molding to cover gaps along the floor. "In old houses, you ofttimes run into the fanciest baseboard in the front room downstairs," says This Old Business firm general contractor Tom Silva.

In houses congenital after Globe War Two, however, fancy gave way to inexpensive, and the vital floor-to-wall transition became the domain of thin, characterless jumpsuit trim. Fortunately, it's like shooting fish in a barrel to replace modern moldings with taller, thicker, two- or 3-part baseboards.

Running baseboard is also proficient for perfecting carpentry skills. The joints required are unproblematic butts, miters, and copes, and the same basic installation steps use to all trimwork.

Baseboard Parts Overview

How Practice Y'all Install Baseboards Like a Pro?

When starting from scratch, Tom Silva prefers the wait of a base of operations that's at least six inches loftier and ½ to ¾ inches thick, topped with a separate, deeply profiled cap molding. Merely if he's remodeling a firm graced with good-looking baseboards, he tries his best to match the new trim to what's already at that place.

Making a new baseboard the same height every bit the original isn't difficult; finding a cap molding with the same contour can be, especially on an old house. Sometimes Tom will get lucky and locate the profile he needs from the 100 or so that expert millwork shops keep in stock. Sometimes he'll combine two or more of those moldings to create a shape that is shut. Only when an exact replica is needed, he'll have custom molding milled up.

Planning Alee

To determine the amount of baseboard textile you need, measure each direct section of the wall and round up to the nearest whole-foot dimension divisible past two. A week earlier installation, bring the wood inside to acclimatize. Kickoff running baseboard against inside corners and work toward outside corners.

Steps on How to Install Baseboard

1. Prep Work: Measure, Number and Mark

Man Marks Wall To Install Baseboard Trim

Measure and cut the baseboards for each wall. Boards that run into exterior corners should be a few inches longer than the wall to allow for miter cuts.
Number the back of each board and write that same number on the wall where the board will get.
Find and marking the studs in the wall; they'll serve as the house base of operations for nailing the baseboard.

Tip: Studs are unremarkably placed 16 inches on-center, so later on locating the first one you may be able to locate others using a tape measure. On older homes, verify locations with a nail.

2. Establish the Baseboard Height

Man Uses Level To Establish Baseboard Height

Fix a 4-foot level on the floor next to the wall to run across if the floor is level. If not, move the level across the floor to find its lowest point. At that point, tack a bit piece of baseboard to the wall with a boom.
Using the elevation of this baseboard slice as a benchmark, brand horizontal marks every few feet at the same level on the walls effectually the room.
Snap a chalk line between the marks around the perimeter of the room to prove where the superlative edge of all the baseboards should state when they're installed.
Starting at an inside corner, concur the first lath against the wall, level it, then tack it in place with a nail or two.
Set up your compass points to bridge the vertical distance between the chalk line and either of the lath'due south top corners.

3. Scribe for a Tight Fit

Man Uses Compass to Ensure Tight Fit Of Baseboard Along Bottom Of Floor

Without irresolute the spread of the compass's legs, hold the pencil on the baseboard and the indicate confronting the floor. Slide the compass along the floor over the board's length, keeping the points aligned vertically.
With a circular saw set for a two- to v-caste bevel, cut alongside the scribe line so the face of the cut will exist on the side toward the wall.
Trim the askew edge down to the line with a cake plane. When the scribed baseboard is put back on the wall, its top edge should line up with the chalk line snapped in Step 2.

Tip: Beveling the board's bottom edge makes it much easier to scribe-fit.

4. Nail Baseboard to Wall

Man Nails Baseboard To Wall With Hammer And 8d Finish Nails

Set the scribed baseboard in place.
Adjacent, at each stud location, hammer 2 8d terminate nails through the board, at a slight down angle, near its tiptop and bottom edges. To avoid marking the wood, utilize a nail set to drive the heads just below the wood surface.

5. Marking Outside Corner Joints

Man Marks Outside Corner Joints Of Baseboard To Cut With Miter Saw

Fit i end of the board snugly against the inside corner (or casing), and at the other stop draw a vertical line upward the back of the board, using the edge of the outside corner to guide the pencil. Mark the top of the board to show the direction of the miter.
Remove the marked board and place the 1 that will make upwards the miter's other one-half against the adjacent wall. Mark the same style.

half dozen. Miter-Cut Outside Corner Joints

Man Cuts Marked Corner Joints Of Baseboard Trim With Miter Saw

Set a compound miter saw to 45 degrees and cut each miter but outside of the line. This fashion, the joint tin can be fine-tuned.
Place both boards back against the wall and examine the joint. If it isn't tight on the side and tiptop, go dorsum to the saw or pick up a cake plane and trim the forest until information technology is.

Tip: "You want to cutting next to the line mark the joint," says Tom. "Then in that location'southward room to fine-tune and go information technology tight."

7. Cut Biscuit Slots

Man Cuts Biscuit Slots On Baseboard With Biscuit Joiner

To make sure an exterior miter joint stays tight, connect the two halves with glue and Number 10 compressed-wood biscuits. Beginning, concur the ii boards tightly against the outside corner and pencil a mark in two places across the articulation. The marks should exist equidistant from each other and from the edges of the board.
Then remove the boards, set the biscuit joiner perpendicular to the cut confront, and adjust the depth of its fence and then the cut will be nearer to the back side of the boards.
Align the tool's centerline with a mark and plunge-cut a slot into the face of the cut. Practice the same affair at the next mark.

8. Assemble the Biscuit Joints

Man Assembles Biscuit Joints Of Baseboards

Clasp carpenter's glue into both slots and over the face of each half of the miter cut. Then slip a biscuit into each slot on ane lath and bring the 2 boards together.
Place the boards dorsum on the wall and drive 2 8d finish nails into the wall on each side of the miter. Between these nails, drive a 4d finish blast through the joint and into the stop grain of the contrary slice. Tap nail heads below the wood surface with a smash set.
Where 2 boards come across on a direct run, make a scarf articulation by mitering the ends in opposite directions at a point where there's a stud. Glue and overlap the miters, so nail through the piece that covers the joint (not through the joint itself) and into the stud.
For within corners, only butt the baseboard ends together, then nail them to the wall.

9. Nail on the Cap Molding

When using a cap molding, place it on the base to see if the back of the molding fits snugly against the wall. Secure it at each stud with an 8d nail driven at a slight down bending through the thicker parts of the molding.
If there are gaps backside the molding and no stud to nail into, squeeze a bead of construction adhesive on the back of the molding at those spots and nail the molding to the studs, as above. And so blast the molding to the wall between the studs to concord it in identify until the adhesive sets.

10. Sand the Cap Molding

To create tight plumbing equipment joints where cap molding meets at inside corners, cope the joints.
Join exterior corners with miters, marking and cutting as in Step 4. Gum miter joints together; adding biscuits or nails may crusade the narrow molding to split.
Where 2 caps meet on a long wall, make a scarf joint as described in Step 8.
Sand all the mitered corners lightly with fine sandpaper to remove any abrupt edges. The baseboard trim is now ready to exist primed and painted.