Baseboards

Over the last couple of days we've been working on some more finishing touches from our to-do list.  We've started the process of re-creating baseboards to match the originals (the majority of the original 7 and 3/4 inch baseboards had been removed and replaced by tiny 3 inch ones).  We love those little touches of character that the house has so it was important for us to try to restore the baseboards as best we could.  And what we couldn't restore, we would try to replicate. 

Here's some of the trim when we moved in (original)

And some of the much shorter, new trim that they had replaced...boo

We took a trip to a near by lumber store, Peacock Lumber, to price out how much it would cost for them to cut some matching trim.  We brought a piece of the original with us and they confirmed that it was made out of mahogany.  I'm told that new mahogany has nothing on the old stuff which is much more dense.  Either way, mahogany was not in our budget.  Especially since we plan to paint all of the trim white, we're not so concerned with keeping the type of wood the same.  They quoted us $90 for 20 feet of trim.  We would need quite a bit more than that and we weren't overly keen on the price tag that would add up to.

So we headed to Home Depot to price out some MDF.  For a 4x8 sheet of 3/4 inch thick MDF (same thickness as the originals) it would be $35 + tax.  Once we cut a board that size up it would give us 48 feet!  With our previous discussion of being careful not to over-renovate in mind, we knew this was the right fit for us.

Luckily (in terms of having to replicate them) the original baseboards have a very basic profile and Darryl and his dad knocked all 48 feet of them out in under 10mins

We had Home Depot cut the big boards into 7 1/2 inch planks

When we got the pieces home Darryl was ready to kick some baseboard butt

All done the cuts...

Then I gave them a quick sand-by-hand.....then realized that wasn't good enough so the next day I tackled them again with the power tools.  Then I brought them in, set them up in assembly line fashion and started to prime and paint over a couple of days...

Sorry for the dark picture...

Right now, the living/dining room is still looking like this, but we're hoping to be able to start putting some baseboards up on the weekend so that we can make room to set up Karl's Dad.  We're eager to have him put together!

Are you getting any finishing touches done?  Tackling anything on your to-do list?  Ever tried to replicate something original?