BASE AND SHOE MOLDING

[rbm328]

i have a situation that i'm not sure what to do. my house originally had carpet in the main hallway. we had EVP installed. after we reinstalled the shoe molding, we noticed that at one end the floor drops off. measuring the gap on that side, we noticed the gap goes from 3/8 to 3/4 but the base molding stayed level.
any recommendations to be able to install the standard shoe molding? right now, the shoe at the one end slips under the base molding.
thanks
rich

 

[nealtw]

Is it to late to change to a taller base molding?
Can you just add a spacer behind the new molding.

 

[rbm328]

its definitely too late as i'd have to replace all the base in the hall in order to match. putting in a spacer is an option i had thought of but just hoping for something i had not thought of.
thanks

 

[Brian Famous]

Other than the spacer, I think you're only other option is to redo the base molding to follow the floor more closely... So the spacer is probably your best option.

 

[Michael Armstrong]

You might try adding a 2nd layer of another molding at the base of the existing base -- a stop molding might work -- to follow the carpet and cover the variable gap. I've seen some older base molds made up of 3 or 4 separate moldings, and they look pretty good.

 

[Sparky617]

We had this problem at a recent project at our church. The concrete slab had dropped a good 1.5" from the high side down to the low corner. The footers were fine, but after 51 years the slab had dropped probably due to improper compaction of the base material. Interestingly, the slab didn't have any cracks, but the witness marks on the concrete block walls show it was clearly level when it was poured. For the first 50 years of its life, this room had painted concrete block walls.

We were installing wainscot and installed the bottom pieces level. We then used a piece of flat stock that we scribed to follow the floor. Those of us that did the work notice it, but no one else does unless we point it out to them. I think everyone would have noticed if we had followed the floor. The alternative would have been to use wider base molding, we used 1x6 finger jointed, primed wood for the trim, and scribe it to the floor keeping the top of the trim level. That would have meant that we would have had to wait for the floor installation to install it. Though I suppose we could have just added a piece of shoe to close the gap. If you look at the attached picture, the drop is behind the rolling whiteboard.