Painting baseboard trim

Stan in Oly, WA

Well-known Member
I'm painting the trim in a room I finished painting, and I can't come up with a good way to paint the baseboards. All the baseboard is against the floor, and carpeting was installed up to it. The carpet is maybe 3/4" high against the baseboard. What I haven't been able to figure out is a way to paint the baseboards lower than the height of the carpet without getting paint on the carpet. I thought of slipping a taping broad knife between the baseboard and the carpet, then lowering the handle away from the wall to press the carpet down. I tried this without painting, and the trouble was that the carpet springs back up against the baseboard as soon as the broad knife is removed. If the baseboard had been painted then, the carpet would have come in contact with the wet paint. The baseboard is badly scuffed down to the level of the surface of the carpet and below, and also a different color than the new paint. If I can't figure out a way to cover it, it will be very noticeable. Any suggestions?

Stan
 
Is it difficult to remove the baseboard, paint, then reinstall? Or would a say, 3 inch wide, long steel strip be heavy enough to hold the carpet down til the paint dries? How many feet of baseboard?
 
Stan, one thing you might consider would be getting a roll of flashing material, but make sure it's the stiffer stuff - not that soda-can-aluminum. Work the flashing under your baseboard and have something to weigh it down on the carpet. Then paint to your little heart's content! After that paint dries, move on to the next wall or section - or buy more flashing.

Outside of that, you might as well remove the baseboard.

Oh, if "flashing" isn't stiff enough, you might go to your home center and look around in the steel roofing area for rolled steel that goes along with that roofing. Has been years since I've bought steel roofing, but seems like I remember something like that in rolls - was the same material as the roofing.
 
I've used painters tape on the carpeting and had it work quite well. If there's enough clearance beneath the trim to tuck the tape, it should be OK.
 
You know that old set of venetian blinds taking up space in back of the storage shed? Cut the cords,take them apart,put masking tape over the cord slots and stick a bunch between carpet and baseboard. Just leave them in place til paint dry's.
 
What I would do is get some 2" wide masking tape and mask off the carpet leaving the tape about 1/4" away from the base. Then mask it the rest of the way with a paint block tape such as Frog Tape. Then there is a masking paper with an adhesive edge you could go around the room that would give you about 16" of protection. If you are bad to drip paint you might cover the rest of the carpet with a drop cloth.
 
Could probably also use strips of poly sheeting tucked under. Don't know why I didn't think of that before. Numb between the ears, I guess. :wink:
 
Good suggestions, everyone. Thanks. I'll see which things I have on hand---of the things other than tape, I mean. I've got tape.

Stan
 
Da.bees suggestion is a concept I use. Also vacuum the carpet along the wall to keep lose particles for getting into the wet paint.
 
I would use flashing as others suggested. To keep it down just use a few roofing nails tapped through the carpet and 1/4" into floor.
 
When you finally get all that painting done, she will decide that she needs new carpeting to go with all that new paint. :cry:
 
Mike;

That was what I planned to use, but when I tried it---without paint---I could see that as soon as I released it, the carpet would rebound into the painted surface. The idea of using flashing metal or some other kind of sheet metal strips slipped under the bottom of the baseboard seemed like the best idea, but I discovered something simpler from a YouTube video. I haven't quite finished the job yet, so I don't want to promote the idea until I'm sure that it works, but so far, so good. If it comes out all right, I'll start a new posting to describe it.

Stan
 

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