ᐅ Is it feasible for a layperson to install baseboards themselves?
Created on: 26 Aug 2020 21:36
K
kati1337
Hello,
we have hired a painter for the entire house, including wallpapering and painting. I have now asked what he would charge for the baseboards but haven’t received a price yet.
Is it something a layperson could realistically do themselves? A miter box and a Japanese saw can be bought for about €70 (around $75). On Amazon, there are complete kits with baseboards and corner blocks available for just under €200 (about $215), although I haven’t calculated if the length would be enough. However, a friend mentioned that installing baseboards is much more difficult than it seems at first glance. Especially cutting for the corners would be a really tough job.
Do you have any experience with this? I’m not extremely perfectionistic, but it should look neat. Would you recommend letting a professional handle it, or is it something one can try doing oneself?
we have hired a painter for the entire house, including wallpapering and painting. I have now asked what he would charge for the baseboards but haven’t received a price yet.
Is it something a layperson could realistically do themselves? A miter box and a Japanese saw can be bought for about €70 (around $75). On Amazon, there are complete kits with baseboards and corner blocks available for just under €200 (about $215), although I haven’t calculated if the length would be enough. However, a friend mentioned that installing baseboards is much more difficult than it seems at first glance. Especially cutting for the corners would be a really tough job.
Do you have any experience with this? I’m not extremely perfectionistic, but it should look neat. Would you recommend letting a professional handle it, or is it something one can try doing oneself?
Andre77 schrieb:
Here is the version with the corner towers. I thought it was something different compared to the plugged corners or the miter-cut ones. We have it like that as well. This way, there’s no need for miter cutting, and it always looks neat and tidy.
Alessandro schrieb:
It would be interesting to know the actual cost savings of doing it yourself.
For my 200sqm (2150 sq ft) house, the labor cost for the contractor was only about 400 euros. This can be easily calculated based on the hourly wage. For me, there were 5 rooms plus a hallway. I needed 4 hours per room, totaling 24 hours. A professional is twice as fast, so 12 hours. At a gross rate of 50 euros per hour, that’s about 600 euros in savings. Certainly not a huge amount, but just enough to make doing it yourself worthwhile (own labor paid at 25 euros net). A miter saw is necessary, though.
I have had good experience installing baseboards using a hot glue gun. Advantage: the glue sets much faster once cooled compared to construction adhesive.
Important: gluing works well only if the walls are reasonably flat; for older buildings, I would use a different method.
Important: gluing works well only if the walls are reasonably flat; for older buildings, I would use a different method.
I have a new build with rather uneven walls, sometimes with gaps of about 0.5 cm (0.2 inches). The advantage of clips is that you can hold the molding in place and where the gaps are, you simply attach a clip. This pulls the molding to the wall, making the gap almost invisible. With adhesive, I had the problem that the moldings didn’t stick there, just as you described.
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Alessandro31 Aug 2020 08:16Bookstar schrieb:
This can be easily calculated based on the hourly wage. For me, it was 5 rooms plus a hallway. I needed 4 hours per room, totaling 24 hours. A professional is twice as fast, so 12 hours. At a gross rate of 50 euros, that’s about 600 euros saved. Certainly not a huge amount, but still just profitable enough to do it yourself (net wage 25). A miter saw / chop saw is necessary, though.Exactly! You don’t include the costs or time for renting tools, transportation, preparation, cleaning up, or disposal! For me, the effort wasn’t worth the few hundred euros saved. Besides, I’ve never seen baseboards installed nicely by an amateur.
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