ᐅ Replace and adjust the baseboard where carpet meets parquet flooring

Hello dear forum,
eight years ago we built a new house and at that time installed carpet on the upper floor. Now we want to replace it with glued hardwood flooring.

Upstairs, we have installed 14cm (5.5 inches) high Hamburg-style baseboards. These are painted solid wood, so somewhat higher quality, and we would like to "save" them if possible. We glued the baseboards when we installed them. Now I’m afraid I won’t be able to remove them completely without damage.

Question: Does anyone have experience with installing new hardwood flooring when baseboards are already in place? Do the baseboards need to be fully removed? Or: Should I leave them and just fit the flooring up to them?

I’d appreciate any advice!

Thanks and best regards

Hello questioner,
The baseboards need to be removed, partly because there would be an 8-10mm (0.3-0.4 inch) wide gap between the later glued hardwood flooring and the baseboard in front of the base of the skirting. This is not an acceptable visual solution!
The solid wood baseboards can (or rather must) be refurbished after removal, as they will not come off the wall surface without some effort – ideally only taking off the top edge layer of the plaster. It can be expected that the back of the boards will have mineral deposits. These will be cleaned off, and the exposed back surface of the wood will be sanded to ensure good adhesion for the new gluing later on.
The "damaged" wall area will be filled again with a smoothing compound after spot priming.
Regards, KlaRa

Thanks for the reply!

While I’m at it, is there a trick to removing baseboards from the wall with minimal damage? I have to say: both the wall and the baseboards are so perfectly straight that in many places not even a sheet of paper fits between them to carefully insert a scraper or something similar to pry them away from the wall...

You can also install a quarter round or a small cove molding over the edge strip of the parquet and paint it in the color of the molding.

Myrna_Loy schrieb:

You can also install a quarter round or a small cove molding over the edge strip of the parquet and paint it in the color of the molding.

That would have been my recommendation as well.

Myrna_Loy schrieb:

You can also install a quarter round or a small cove molding over the edge strip of the parquet floor and paint it in the same color as the baseboards.

Actually, I have that idea in the back of my mind as well, in case the baseboards cannot be removed without damage. Because then I would have to buy completely new baseboards for the upper floor. Let’s say I had to bite the bullet: what I really want to avoid is cutting the miters :p:p Seriously, the baseboards were installed so precisely; every miter cut was perfectly made by our builder back then, practically seamless. For that reason alone, I would prefer to keep the baseboards in place.
I will carefully start somewhere in the dressing area at the back and see how it goes...