Before moving into my house, I pulled out all the old, gross carpet. The baseboards were gunked up with several layers of paint and embedded carpet fibers, so out they went as well. And for almost three years, my poor house has been lacking baseboards.
Modern baseboards don't have much of a function beyond aesthetics, so they haven't been on the top of my priority list. But with the recent purchase of a miter saw and pin nailer, I finally had the right tools to tackle the installation of baseboards. My bedroom was the first recipient.
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| no baseboards |
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| with baseboards |
The baseboards don't make any kind of grand style statement, but they help the room look more finished.
Like most rooms in my house, my bedroom has no overhead light. The switch on the wall activates a "magical" electrical outlet into which one plugs a lamp. And like most of the magical outlets in my house, the bedroom one is the in stupidest possible place. To get light in any useful area of the room, I have to run an extension cord across the room. In my bedroom, a 30-foot extension cord goes from the outlet on the west wall all the way across the south wall (behind the head of my bed) and the east wall to a lamp in the northeast corner.
To keep the cord out of the way, I used masking tape. NOT an elegant solution.
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| no baseboards; tape holding the cord |
After installing the baseboards, I added a
cord management system along the south and east walls. It's basically a plastic channel that sticks to the wall and snaps shut to enclose the cord. Very easy to install and it keeps the cord neatly out of the way. The channel can be left white or painted to match the wall color.
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| with baseboards and cord management |
Most of the baseboards in my bedroom are hidden behind furniture or curtains, so it was a good room for this first-timer to practice on. I am proud to say that only one splice is a little wonky. :)
"The switch on the wall activates a "magical" electrical outlet into which one plugs a lamp."
ReplyDeleteHaha! I love the way you put that! We have that in our apartment too, in our case if you hit it (which is in the dining room??) it turns off our tv/dvd player. Oh, old apartments.
Your project looks awesome, great job!
Thank you! :)
DeleteEach of our power outlets has its own little switch - nice and useful... except that all of ours are in the least useful places too, and we have to run extension leads too. Those cable ducts are brilliant ideas; there used to be some running on our house for the internal computer network, before wireless. Baseboards (same skirting?) do make a room look more finished. That's a pretty floor vent.
ReplyDeleteThanks! The plastic "hat" kind of ruins the look of the floor vent, but without it, the air blows more behind the curtains than into the room. :P
DeleteThere was a fair bit of cursing in our house the day(s) the husband installed the crown molding. Hope you have much better success! :o)
ReplyDeleteI suspect I will be cursing, too. I have corner blocks to make it easier, so hopefully it won't be a complete nightmare!
DeleteMy "magical outlets" are outside. They are, for some reason, attached to the switch that turns on my living room lights. This switch also operates the lights that sit on either side of my front gate, but not the one next to my front door. That one has it's own switch. Weird as hell.
ReplyDeleteRandom! I'd like to think there's some special electrical code-related reason for doing such things, but maybe it's just electricians pranking us.
DeleteHave you checked out baseboards that hide the electrical wires inside?
ReplyDeleteI did, and I considered using them. In the end, I went with wood baseboards because there were more size and style options.
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