Q: We’ve decided to put a 3/4″ hardwood floor over 3/4″ plywood, on top of a cement floor. Our problem is that by doing this we are going to lose a lot of height off our base boards, and they will look substantially dwarfed.
Our walls are newly painted and an installer told us that we can’t take off the base boards without damaging the walls above. New baseboards would hide damage 3″ above existing base boards, but apparently the damage done to the walls is higher up.
Do you agree with this? If not, how can we carefully remove the base boards to protect the walls? (We’d probably do this part ourselves.)
A: Using a sharp utility knife, cut along the top edge of the base to break any hold the paint would have between the wall and baseboards.
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