Replies

1. 
   Westchester | Jan 25, 2010 12:01pm | #1

   base board - crown molding or both ?

   SA

2. 
   WillGeorge | Jan 25, 2010 12:39pm | #2

   I loved your post. I had a good laugh on your problem.

   I AM NOT laughing at you sir. My house is very, very old and it 'still settling'...

   Maybe breaktime is a better place to go to than listening to me..

   I would think that "1/16" to 1/8" that was filled with caulk" are a very minor problem. Sure wish mine were that small!

   Anyway, I have attached some trim in one room, as my experiment, to the ceiling and not the wall. As in the wood follows the ceiling and not the wall. Then the wood trim warps at the wall surface.

   Modern calks 'give' a bit if you pay for the expensive stuff.

   My house has a flat roof and if I have a very heavy, wet, snow fall, I can sit inside and watch the wood trim move. Sort of like watching grass grow?

   I think my real problem with it is.. I see the paint crack in places much more than the wood moves.

   Sir.. A house is a house, and then again sometimes just a place a family gathers, and they do not worry about such things?

3. 
   RalphBarker | Jan 25, 2010 01:00pm | #3

   I have the same question as Westchester - what kind of trim and where?

   Depending on the location of the repair in relation to existing trim, it might be best to remove the trim so the new plaster surface can extend beneath the trim, creating a new smooth surface upon which the trim can seat.

   There are slightly different trim strategies during original construction. Baseboards, for example, are often held above the floor to allow a space for a flooring material to be extended or tucked beneath the baseboard. Trim around windows, however, should be flush to both the inside surface of the window frame and the surface of the wall plaster. With older homes, particularly if previously remodeled or repaired, lots of variations can be encountered. Whether to "fix" the problems is the big question.

   In general, I'd be reluctant to caulk to a piece of wooden trim, since there will be some movement in the trim. That movement will often result in an ugly crack in the caulk.

4. 
   bduffin104 | Jan 25, 2010 04:11pm | #4

   The nice thing about installing paint grade trim is that ts does not have to fit tight to the wall. You can float the trim in straight and caulk any gaps, which makes the walls look straighter. I've installed a lot of trim in a lot of houses and can tell you that there are very few truly flat walls out there. Stain grade trim, especially when it's pre-finished, requires installing as tight to the wall was possible which if the wall is not flat or straight it is more obvious. You can cover a lot of sin with caulk and paint.

5. 
   popawheelie | Jan 27, 2010 12:36am | #5

   I don't like caulk if at all
   I don't like caulk if at all posible. To me it looks like the trim carpenter was slopy and covered it up.

   I don't see anything wrong with a shadow line where the trim is a bit off of the wall. Like on casing. It should be tight to the jam, but it can float over the wall.

   I just don't see why everyhting has to be seamless.

   I've seen trim carpenters that go through cases of caulking and it just doesn't make sense to me.

   Maybe it is because most of my trim work was stain grade.

   It reminds me of the difference between old cars trim and new cars. The old cars had metal bumpers that stood out a bit from the body and a good looking bumper was a thing of beauty. Now the bumpers are kind of seamless to the body and are the same color. I think they are ugly.

   But if you talk to a younger person about it, they don't get it. They grew up with this rounded seamless look.

   I like trim to be lined up and straight but it doesn't need to be tight to the wall and certainly not caulked.

1. 
   bduffin104 | Jan 27, 2010 02:15am | #6

   Hey now, you are entitled to your opinion but lets not become caulk snobs and insult the trim carpenters (me) and painters. There is a lot of sloppy work out there but a good trim/caulking job requires skill. As I said in my earlier post, if you nail base or crown or chair rail tight to a crooked wall then the trim is going to look crooked. I try to install the trim straight and let the skilled painters caulk the gaps. If you have white trim on a white wall I think it would look awful the leave the dark gap between the wall and the trim. Now of course stain grade or natural wood trim is a whole other story and I would agree with your dislike of caulk it that circumstance. It requires more skill and patience to fit stain grade trim to a crooked wall vs. paint grade. To those that have never had to install anything on a crooked wall, you're very fortunate, you lead a charmed life

1. 
   zgmc | Jan 27, 2010 08:41am | #7

   A professional painter will run a bead of caulk everywhere the trim meets the wall, jamb, ceiling, plinth blocks, ect, regardless of any gaps being present. If you do not use caulk, the paint will crack in every joint. Caulk is not just used as a cover up, it is in my opinion a necessity for a quality paint job.

1. 
   popawheelie | Jan 27, 2010 10:26am | #8

   That's what I'm talking
   That's what I'm talking about. You come form the camp where calking is used a lot. I'm not saying it is wrong. I never said that. I said I don't like it.

   I do all my own painting so I don't have "profesional" painters paint my house.

2. 
   popawheelie | Jan 27, 2010 10:34am | #9

   I didn't mean to insult you.
   I didn't mean to insult you. I just stated my opinion.

   If you don't agree that's fine.

   I use very little caulk. I agree with your statement about wavy walls being a problem.

   Where I grew up and when I was a trim carpenter all the high end jobs were smooth wall. No texture on the walls.

   So the walls were very straight and very smooth.

   But i really don't mind having a straight piece of trim on a wavy wall. I don't see why they have to become one.

   Let the wall be wavy and the trim be straight.

1. 
   bduffin104 | Jan 27, 2010 09:18pm | #11

   Thank you. You really didn't
   Thank you. You really didn't insult me, I was merely making conversation.

   .

   There is more than one way to trim out a house, my and the wrong way.....just kidding, just kidding.

   .

   I'm fairly new here so my sarcasims may not be apparent to everyone yet.

   .

   For the past few weeks I've been trimming out a big new house and fighting with some wavy walls and cockeyed door openings, however, the floors have been dead level which made installing the cabinets easier.

6. 
   KeithNewton | Jan 27, 2010 01:27pm | #10

   Lots of this kind of problem comes from the trim sitting in an unconditioned atmosphere for a long enough period of time to have gained a higher MC than it will after reaching EMC in its installed location, where it then shrinks.

   I am currently working in a kitchen where a 6" crown was installed during the wettest year on record here. The carpenter pre-primed it then caulked it while the house was still open for a few more months. Now that the heat has been on for a while, the painter are cutting it all out to re-caulk it just to avoid caulking over already split caulking.

   I knew it would happen as soon as I saw he had caulked it, but I missed getting by there during that period.

1. 
   popawheelie | Jan 27, 2010 11:24pm | #12

   Crown is notorious for shrinking. It sits at the top of the room where there is a pocket of dry warm air. I had some do that and was surprised by how much it shrank.

2. 
   bcool | Jan 28, 2010 02:09pm | #13

   I agree with you. several houses that we trimmed developed cracks where the trim meets the wall/ceiling after about 5 years here in the humid south. Summers are hot and humid, winters are dry with central heating.

7. 
   RichClark | Jan 30, 2010 10:48pm | #14

   Janet,

   While my house is not a billion years old it is 119, Its in Florida and they added A/C to the house as an after thought when it was invented.. My walls are all Lapboard and plaster. (hard as concrete plaster). I noticed as the house was noodled with and repaired that the "stock dimensions" for the door trim/window trim etc changed. It was easier for the new window installer (for instance) to just slap the 4" pine/poplar at the Box store had instead of the 4 1/2 or 5 even it had... As I Fix the house (my life's calling it seems). I find that I have the same issue but only on the tops of the doors/windows (all of them). We have bugs in FLA. and I couldn't for the life of me figure out where they were getting in.. and lo and behold the tops of all the windows and doors had gaps... Because the original Arts and Crafts trim is not available to the idiots that were upgrading them. I replace them as they aggravate me. Hand laying up them to the correct height.

   I think this is your real problem.

   Rich

8. 
   rwv | Aug 29, 2010 11:55pm | #15

   Run Trim Straight and Mud the Walls

   Here's what Ido...  run the trim straight and then come back and mud the walls out to meet the trim where gaps are bigger than 3/32" or so.  I get the best of both worlds. My trim looks perfectly linear and there are no gaps to the walls.  For painted trim I ALWAYS caulk a nice super-tight-radius bead that allows the painters (or me) get a perfectly straight cut-in line.  For natural finishes, I stain the trim before installing, tape if off to do the mud work, caulk it in with clear caulk, and then polyurethane it.  This, again, allows for a perfect paint cut-in with no gaps or cracksand walls and trim the run straight as an arrow and tight as a drum.

   Hope this helps.