Question for the Internet

[electricland]

but particularly nellisir: We need to put in baseboards. We ripped everything out of the house as part of gutting it; we do have a few of the old baseboards, which are 8" high, but they are covered in the paint of ages and frequently full of holes.

I took a one-day course in trim carpentry last year, which was helpful, but I've forgotten (if I ever knew) the answer to the most important question: What material to use?

I'm probably too cheap and have too many walls to spring for hardwood (and we plan to paint the baseboards in any case). That seems to leave pine or MDF. MDF seems simpler to work with, especially for cope joints, but how does it stand up to use? Am I going to regret installing the stuff 5 years from now? Help!

Comments

[nellisir.livejournal.com]

Sorry this is a bit wordy.

There are advantages to both. The short answer is I prefer wood. MDF is heavier, "dings" a little easier on the edges, occasionally snaps if you have a long narrow piece, and, if (when) you need to pull a piece out, MDF is more likely to bust in some unrecoverable manner. Also, if you get it wet, MDF expands like a sponge on growth hormones. Even a drop of water will leave a slightly raised, rougher spot.

That said, there are a number of choices.

Are you matching (pre)existing? If yes,was there a profile (molding) on it, or was it square (ie a board nailed to the wall)?

If square and actual height was 8", you're probably better off ripping it out of sheets of MDF. You'd have to buy 1x10 lumber to get 8" true. The weight of MDF is the biggest drawback. It's horrible trying to maneuver on a portable table saw.

If total height was 8" and there was a molding, you can either rip sheets of MDF or buy 1x8. How many knots is up to you. Alternately, you can buy preprimed finger-jointed boards ("PFJ" at pretty much any lumber yard and most box stores. Price will vary depending on priming quality. More expensive than pine, but no knots, preprimed, and standard 16' length. Most PFJ has a "good" and "bad" side; make sure you've got the right one out. Some stamp the bad side, others put a series of little divots on the bad side. If necessary, you can fill these with spackle.

If you can go down to a 5-1/2" baseboard, you can get PFJ or primed MDF baseboard (sometimes called speedbase) in a few profiles. I prefer PFJ for the reasons above.

once it's in, finished and done, the two are pretty much equal.

Ah, yeah, I guess if you're worried about coping joints there must be some kind of profile. Just go slow. Both will tend to snap a little at the tippy tiny points.

Door trim before baseboard. Practice in the closets before the public rooms. Ideally you scribe the bottom of the base to match any imperfections in the floor. Base over tile, not tile next to base. Run the coping joints in a room all one way, so every piece has a square end and a coped end, not two coped ends. Coping two ends stinks. When you're looking from the doorway into a room, the base at the opposite side should be continuous and the coped joints should run into it (if this conflicts with previous, use your best judgement).

Have fun! :)

Just post if you have more questions, or email me at gmail.com

[raithen.livejournal.com]

Dad sez get whichever is cheaper. His first answer was MDF because it likely will be, and will be easier to finish -- just be sure to seal it both sides.

Pine will split if you need to renail it in a few years, when it is dry, but it is also ok, and if cheaper, a fine solution.

call anytime for advice, natch. I can give you his cell.

[texaslawchick.livejournal.com]

I walked through a five year old house during a home tour two weekends ago that used MDF as their floor. They stained it and then sealed it with what looked like polyuruthane, and then just screwed the MDF onto the plywood base and routed the edges. It looked really, really cool, and it looked like it was holding up really well over the years. Obviously, the owners probably spruced up the place before the home tour, but I didn't see any signs that the floors had been redone.

I thought the MDF was an interesting alternative to hardwoods, carpet and tile.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

This is super helpful, thank you so much!

Door trim is all done, thank goodness (by William the carpenter, whose carpentry skills fortunately far exceeded his people skills -- very nice Craftsman-style trim it is too), so we are ahead of the game there. Pretty much the only original baseboard still in place is on the stairs, so I think we can do more or less what we want without worrying too much. Time to go back to Central Fairbank Lumber, methinks.

The order of the bits and coping ends does ring a bell -- the trim carpentry course included a quick overview of planning out what order to do your trim in, which was cool (and handy for my house full of bay windows. Oh dear, the reason I've been putting off the baseboards is coming back to me. I think I'll start with a nice square room).

Anyway, again, thank you so much!

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Cool! Please thank him very much for me!

[electricland.livejournal.com]

interesting! I can't quite picture it -- what colour was it?

[texaslawchick.livejournal.com]

It was sort of an orangy-yellow color. It's the number 2 house in tour. You can only see the color of the floors in the picture rather than the details.

[nellisir.livejournal.com]

Ew, bay windows. ;) good luck.

Run a piece long whenever possible and mark the cut instead of just measuring it. That should make things a little easier. And be prepared to caulk and spackle...but I think you know that already.

Pictures wouldn't be amiss, either. I think the last ones I saw featured bare studs. ;)

[nellisir.livejournal.com]

re: pine splitting - because primed finger jointed doesn't have a consistent grain (since it's made of up 6-12" sections of wood), it doesn't split excessively. Also, don't nail within an inch of an edge, and you should be OK. If you can use a finish nail gun or brad nailer, even better. If you do need to renail for some reason, or nail right at an edge, predrill holes.

[nellisir.livejournal.com]

Oh, IMPORTANT NOTE!!!

Before you put the base on, MARK THE STUDS. little pieces of tape on the floor or something. Pencil if you're going to put carpet down later. Pencil on the wall if you'll be painting later. At least mark one that you can pull measurements off of. Also mark any electrical wires or plumbing that you might accidently nail through. In modern houses there's a base plate that the wall studs rest on, so you've got a continual nailing surface along the bottom, but you need the stud location to nail the top of the baseboard in.

[nellisir.livejournal.com]

Central Fairbank Lumber has PFJ listed as FJP. It looks like all they have for 5-1/4" speedbase is Aristocrat Base - 574B, which is 3/8" thick. That's a little thinner than I might want. They've got MDF in a 4-1/8" high x 7/16", but that still seems a bit slender to me. And short. I think a good 5/8" is minimum on an older house, personally.

You might just go with a square base (just regular 1x5 or 1x6, in other words) with your own molding on top. Pine or PFJ/FJP. Primed will be more expensive than a "typical" pine, but knot-free and cheaper than a knot-free (ie stain-grade) pine.