Help me, Im slowly destroying my home.

one of the main reasons I dont use much moldings on the furniture I build, is because I seem to always have headaches with perfect or near perfect cuts.
My neighbor laughed at my kitchen entry molding, only because I cut the top first, leveled it off, and then tried to fit the sides with reveals and it all got so messed up so I left the mitres opened a tiny bit and filled it in with caulking. I think once painted, it will be all unnoticable.
He also warned me bill about cutting everything a touch long and then creeping up on the cut so if I have to change an angle slightly I have enough.

Im not much good at it. So I dont enjoy it much.

I have one entry way, I always wondered why when I purchase the house, some of the entryways had just corner molding on them, some didnt, it always looked horrible, but I left it since I was lazy and didnt want to pay someone.
Now that I started molding it all out, I see why noone ever bothered.
One wall has around 2.5 inches at the top before the wall meets, and near the bottom its over 1/2 inch less. You cant run a piece of molding down an entranceway that is off by 1/2.

My wife says we should just sell this house, and buy a new home, a newly built home where everything is nice and new.
As usual, I told her after Im gone, she can buy any home she wants with her new husband.

Hey Allen, new houses don't mean plumb and square. Take my word for it. Unless you have it built and check everyday. I bought a new spec house and I am always amazed with what I found that is not level, square or plumb.

Hang in there Allen. Sometimes I'll take 2 pieces of scrap to find the angle of the miter. But thats just on casing and outside corners. I cope my inside corners. I'll usually count how many inside corners and cope that many pieces before I do anything. Then I start in a corner and run with it.

it boils down to one thing really.
my entire life I shyed away from doing household woodworking like molding, doors, windows.
now, at 55, severely overweight, arthritic, and a bit disabled, Im trying to learn things that might just be a bit too out of my reach, not so much talent wise, but its physically demanding to spend a day installing base moldings if youre not in good shape.(and even if youre young and healthy, a day working on the floor is not easy)
Im doing my best. I dont claim to be anything more than a mediocre talented weekend warrior, and Im sure to a trained eye it will show easily.
One positive thing: The floor guy might have or might not have cracked the marble saddle I had in the bathroom. He cant cut marble, and I didnt want to pay for a new marble saddle, so he said hed find a maple one, which he couldnt. so he said hed make one. He hasnt gotten back to me, probably my fault for paying him in full and trusting him since hes a nice guy.
I took a piece of flooring, planed down the bottom side, beveled the edges, poly'ed the edges to match the finish, and installed it today myself. My wife says I do better work than the floor guy.

some of the mistakes Im going to redo, just thought Id give you guys a good laugh. You cant insult me, so make fun and give me a few digs, Im not thin skinned when it comes to my craftmanship.

this shot, going up the stairs from the doorway. AFter I showed the contractor, he said what I should do is rip away the round over molding.
Use oversized pieces, let them overlap, where they meet, I should mark that exact spot and cut the angle to match. I went above the roundover, filled in the little diamond spot with diamond piece of molding, and was going to put another piece of roundover in the hole. It was a plywood landing, I had wood put in with the bullnose, so the roundover was cut away with the original carpet on there. I mold around, not rip off and mold the correct way, easy to correct, only a foot of molding.


A doorway, the mitres are a bit off, but I filled it in and said, ok, good enough.


I had the right idea, he said I went cutting crazy. I should have made alot less cuts, more evenly, then bent the wood and filled it in and painted.
Again, I will recut this piece, only a foot of molding.



another mitred entranceway, I decided to rip off whatever was on the inside, didnt like it, so now i have to finish the inside of the entrance, the mitres are a bit off here also, but walls are uneven, so Im going to leave this one alone also.



the saddle.I have to get my hands on the floor guys maple putty so I can touch the nail head marks.


I still have to use kilz primer on alot of the stairway, since IM painting the fronts all white, and prime some areas before I begin all semi-gloss white painting, doors also.

dressing a naked column

an ugly, uneven, crooked column.

I look at the bright side of the outcome. I didnt pay a carpenter 300 bucks a day to do anything.
I had alot of pine laying around, had to buy some more cheap 3/4 roundover.
I built it up, mitred in the roundover to look like a panel, and will add some base molding when I sand it all down.

something important I learned when doing molding for the first time. Use paint grade, cause a little caulking goes a very long way.

ok, you can laugh now, heres another picture of my molding exploits.(I really dont have a clue, and Ive read some material on molding, but I do have some fun)

everything will be painting semigloss white when Im all done.

looks good from here.

Looks good from my house.

Ditto and i like those wooden floors and wide board.

You ARE slowly destroying your home.

And building a much better one in its place! Everything looks good to me. For someone that has not done much of this kind of work I say you have done an excelent job

I have had "professional" drywallers that couldnt have done better. One I hired (because I don't really like to do it) used 3 boxes of mud on HALF of a 8x16 room because I said I wanted a slight pattern on the wall befoe I noticed 3 empty drywall boxes outside the window. Needless to say he was asked to leave and never to return. BTW almost one of the 3 boxes was blobbed all over the floor.

You should be proud of what you have accomplished.

Well I just did a bunch of catching up on this thread, and all I gotta say is despite how bad you may think you are at this, you're still way ahead of me with all the molding and such. The only way to learn it is to do it, and you've actually rolled up your sleeves and done it, unlike me. (I think I've trimmed out two door frames in my life.) I agree with the other guys who've said you're making a heck of an improvement on the place. You're doing great from what I can see.

But since you specifically requested laughing and finger-pointing ...

I am never, ever, never, not in a million years, not for 500 dollars an hour, never, ever putting up baseboard molding again.
Ever, never, not in this lifetime.
Never. It will never happen.

Worst part about all of it, is not only the uneven walls, the wacked out corners, etc.........when I get down to get a good view or measurement, the last 2 times I could hardly lift my fat body up again, thought Id have to spend the day on the floor until my wife came home from work at 4:30.

Never, ever again. Thankgod for caulking.

and it looks like after today, and a few touchups tomorrow, my wife has finally finished painting all the molding, and this job is done. Finito.
She did do a horrible job painting molding, she admits it, but my back and eyes are not up for the job, so it stands as is. Hopefull a bit of touchup will clean things up.

allen levine said:

...A doorway, the mitres are a bit off, but I filled it in and said, ok, good enough...

Click to expand...

As a finish carpenter(?) once told me: "A little caulk and a little paint, makes it look like what it ain't."

my wife painted over some rough caulking spots, before I sanded them down.
She just wants the blue tape off her walls already.

So...despite your best efforts, you were unable to destroy your home. Congrats on getting this project into the history books.

long post, just me venting again,,



well, spoke too soon, and I dont want to divorce my wife over this.
While my son was packing and made moving around the house difficult to access all the moldings, my wife told me to take a break, shed help me finish it when he was all moved out.
I knew I wanted to keep going and get it over with, but ok....she made sense.
Most of the moldings came out good, the entranceways, ok, 90% of the baseboard ok, ok enough Im glad I didnt pay anyone top dollar.
After the floor guy was done with the floors, we asked him to rip the carpet and sand the staircase going into the attic bedrooms.(where I sleep and the other bedroom is my office and walk in closet)
So during the rip out, the new wall I put in, he broke an inch and a half off on the bottom when he took out the carpet, and I thought easy repair.
And after putting my spotlight on the stairs today, to touch up, I see my wife decided not to go over the stringers?, the part going up the walls attached to the stringers, and sand down all the tiny nubs and threads from the carpet.
I gave her the sandpaper and I pulled every tack and nail the floor guy left.
Turns out she tried to sand, but its a 60 year old pine staircase.
The carpet threads have worked themselves right into the splinters of pine, and it would take back breaking sanding and tons of man hours to fix the problem. Obviously, with a staircase this old going from carpet to white paint and poly'd treads, I believe the only way to get it really well done, is to either pay a painter a fortune to spend hours sanding it, or just replace it all.
I chose to do neither, and I have lost all ambition and interest in spending many hot backbreaking hours fixing it all.
The staircase is the hottest part of the house in the summer.
I decided to just let it go, I will replace the molding next to the door on the landing after the summer, since now Ive learned how to angle it, and I just didnt want to pull it all off. The molding came out bad, the painting only enhanced the crud job, so Im going to have to redo that section, and start plastering and repairing the damage the floor guy did, cause a little plaster and some paint did not fix it up.
Darn it!(this is a family site)
I also had to retouch a few other bad spots she chose not to sand, and I decided I didnt want to fight with her, she just told me hey, I hate this stuff, I told you I hate, it, and I know I did a bad job.(she wanted me to hire someone, I didnt want to spend the money)
Im redoing some bad parts tomorrow while working on the table Im building, so Ill break open the paint can and do all the touchups I can to correct some bad spots.
I used benjamin moore eggshell finish, the blue tape ripped off alot of spots where we taped for molding, I never had that with semigloss finish.

So, I think this will be a never ending job, but when its cooler this fall, Ill open all the windows, turn on the radio, and start some repair work.

Sorry for the long post.

I did learn something though.
Firstainting with your spouse is no mans land.
Second: Painting with your spouse is no mans land.
And most important: Painting with your spouse is no mans land.

Shes lucky shes beautiful, thin and smart, and Im still suprised she stays with a broken down old fattie like me., Ill let it all slide. *hehehehe