Painting baseboard: Results

I got good advice here about protecting the carpet when painting baseboards, but I wanted to see if I could find a way that didn't require finding and cleaning materials I had on hand. YouTube had many videos on the subject, and most of them use this method: Put tape (masking tape, blue painter's tape, clear packaging tape, etc.) on the carpet along the baseboard running a small amount up onto the baseboard. Then, using a putty knife or something similar, or your fingers, push the rolled up edge of the tape down off the baseboard and around the edge of the carpet. You may be able to push the edge of the tape under the baseboard, but that didn't work for me. When I tried to use a putty knife to push masking tape under the baseboard, the tape would stick to the putty knife and pull out again. I found it easier to push the edge of the tape down around the edge of the carpet with my fingers. That was good enough for about 99% of the baseboard. After painting, you have to pull up the tape in 30 to 45 minutes so the paint won't pull off the baseboard where it has bridged and dried. The 1% which didn't work was in places where paint ran over the tape (from not being pushed down completely over the edge of the carpet, I suspect) and there was paint on the very edge of the carpet when the tape was pulled up. It was easy enough to put the blade of a taping knife between the carpet and the baseboard and clean the barely dried paint from the carpet with water and a clean rag. There were also two small places where the paint had dried too much (I left the tape in place for almost an hour in a hot room with a dehumidifier running) and pulled dime sized pieces of paint off the baseboard. That's also an easy fix.

Here's a link to a YouTube video where someone uses clear packing tape to tape off the carpet. She has good luck with it, but I didn't when I tried it, so I used masking tape instead.
Taping carpet for painting baseboard

I think clear package sealing tape sticks too good to use for masking. I also would have allowed the paint to dry overnight before removing the masking.

(quoted from post at 02:53:19 05/22/17) I think clear package sealing tape sticks too good to use for masking. I also would have allowed the paint to dry overnight before removing the masking.

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You don't want to do that with latex, you end up pulling paint off the surface you'd rather have it stay on. On oil based paints that fine. Advise from my FIL who had 35 yrs. of professional painting experience and teacher of apprenticeship classes.

I'm wondering about just removing them and then paint or stain as needed and then reattach them ? A cheap air nailer makes short work of tacking them back on. Might take less time than masking ?

Mike M, Sometimes that's the fastest way to do it, but in this case I didn't think so. I considered it briefly, but then remembered the problems I've had removing the baseboards in other parts of the house. They're 60+ years old and very brittle. I judged that it would have been unlikely that I could have gotten them off without at least some damage to the baseboards and some damage to the walls. It took me less than 15 minutes to tape off the carpet, less than two hours to paint the pasteboards twice, five minutes to pull up the tape, and ten minutes to clean a few spots of paint off the edge of the carpet. That's two and a half hours, max. I'd have to spend well over that much time driving around looking for matching baseboard if any of the existing got too damaged to use during the removal.

Stan