How To Remove Base Trim

Pro Tip (2)

Baseboards and trim can get wedged tightly in corners and stubbornly stick to your walls. This becomes a problem when you need to remove them, since a regular pry bar won't remove them without causing damage to your wallpaper, pigment, and walls (especially drywall). You may fifty-fifty desire to salvage the trim or baseboard for future projects, only it might seem impossible to remove them without breaking them. If y'all're looking for a way to go out both your walls, baseboards, and trim unharmed, you'll demand patience, care, and the right tools as described below:

Tools Yous Will Need

Hammer

utility knife

Utility Knife

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Pencil

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Side-cutter pliers

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Safety Eyeglasses (wear at all times during removal)

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Tarp or Plastic Sheet

*1 Flexible EdgWedge Pry Bar

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*Flexible EdgeWedge pry bars allow you to hands remove the baseboards with their beveled edges made of tough, simply flexible plastic. This allows them to easily slide dorsum and forth without marring the walls or baseboard/trim, unlike putty knifes and metal screwdrivers. The EdgeWedge's heads tin also exist sharpened with a file for thinner edges. Made in America, the EdgeWedge pry bar prepare is durable and congenital to last for all trim and baseboard jobs.

1. Cutting any caulk forth the baseboard with your utility pocketknife, right where it meets the wall. This well help you avoid destroying any paint, drywall, or wallpaper on the wall. Make sure to score along the complete length of the baseboard so that it will detach more than easily from the wall in the afterward steps. Think non to rush: patience is fundamental.

2. Now it's time to use your EdgeWedge of choice. There are three main shapes: a long chisel, a shorter chisel, and a "mushroom" shaped blade. Place your called EdgeWedge pry bar behind the trim or baseboard and wiggle the pry bar tool while pulling information technology toward yous (away from the wall). Continue to practise this, carefully prying and moving forth the whole length of the lath, until it comes completely free from the wall. This tin can have a while, then over again, patience is a virtue here. This is too where a hammer might come in handy. If you are having trouble with the wedge or blade getting stuck in tight trim spots, yous can tap the handle lightly to sink information technology in a little farther and get more leverage.

3. When you have loosened the whole length of the trim, pull ane cease out from the wall carefully.

4. Rock the trim back and along, slowly backing abroad from the wall and standing up. Information technology will eventually release, but you don't desire to rush this process.

five. When removing each piece, put a number on the back of each ane. This is an important step to avert mixing up the boards when using them again. This volition aid you put everything back in society when reinstalling without stress or wasted time.

6. Continue the procedure until you've removed all the pieces you need to. Recollect, if yous have a EdgeWedge set up, three pry bar styles are available to use so you can utilise the proper tool for each position.

7. Once you've removed the boards from the wall, you lot can pull those pesky finishing nails right out - this is when your side-cutter pliers volition exist useful. Exist certain to look around your area for lost nails or anything else that could be a hazard.

8. Run your EdgeWedge across the length of the wall where the baseboards used to exist. This will scrape abroad whatsoever additional adhesive and make mode for your renovations. Then, when transporting your baseboards, have a second person help yous if the lath is very long - y'all don't desire them to snap in one-half. Of class, if you lot aren't planning on using the boards, feel gratuitous to dispose of them promptly.

Removing trim or baseboards without damage tin be a tricky job, but it doesn't have to be. Whether yous are concerned nearly the pigment, the drywall, the wallpaper, the trim, or anything else, you can remove the trim or baseboard safely and easily without dissentious anything. Whether you're a professional person or amateur, just be certain to use the right tools, similar the General Tools EdgeWedge!