Get Perfect Inside Corners the Easy Way (No Coping!!!)

you've probably watched other videos that tell you why coping your baseboards is better and it's true coping your baseboards can improve the quality of your work if you're installing stain grade wood baseboards otherwise it's a huge waste of time and for most people it's going to lead to a lower quality install so in this video i'm going to show you a better easier and faster way to get perfect inside corners when installing your baseboards without having to cope here's the secret right here these little guys are the key to those perfect inside corners here's how it works first cut your inside corners using a miter saw at 44 or 44 and a half degrees instead of 45 degrees this is to compensate for the drywall mud buildup that makes the corners slightly obtuse now in measuring for these cuts round down to the nearest 1 16 of an inch you actually want the baseboards to be just a hair shorter than the distance between the walls otherwise it's difficult to fit them in place now if you try to cut them to the exact length you'll end up having to make multiple cuts and make the job harder so round down by just a hair just don't cut them too short now here's where things get good once you put them in place push in on the baseboards to see if a gap opens up if not then go ahead and nail them in but that's rare you'll probably see a gap especially toward the bottom of the baseboards if so grab one of these popsicle sticks you can find them in the paint department they're actually paint stirring sticks or at a craft store then lift the baseboards and place the popsicle sticks behind them you may need two to close up the gap perfectly as you see me adding two in this situation now the reason these are so good when compared to using shims for example is that they're a consistent thickness okay shims are a pain in the butt because you have to cut them to the right thickness before you can install them behind your baseboards in some cases you may be able to slide them in from the top and just like shims you can easily cut off the excess with a razor knife now once you try this you'll find yourself using them on almost every inside corner on your project and in some cases even on the outside corners and you'll notice that this is way faster than coping your baseboards and it leads to just as good of a result if not even better because coping does take a little bit of skill now here are a couple pictures of some of the inside corners on this recent baseboard project i did as you can see you can get perfect inside corners without coping when you follow the right process now you might be wondering why would anyone ever cope their baseboards well coping does have a couple of benefits over mitered corners the first one is that they accommodate for imperfect angles better so if your corner isn't perfectly 90 and it rarely is it won't really matter the coped joint will fit just right and a miter joint if the angles aren't perfectly mitered at the right angle could show a gap the second benefit is that wood baseboards can expand and contract with moisture changes in the air and when they contract the baseboards will pull away from the corners of the wall and coped joints will show a smaller less noticeable gap when that happens now this isn't really an issue at all if you're using mdf baseboards because they're not going to change much in length with moisture content so unless you're installing stain grade wood baseboards then save yourself the time and the headache pick up a pack of these popsicle sticks and move on to more important projects in your house i hope this video saves you some time for a complete step-by-step video on how to install baseboards check out this video right up here and if you'd like to learn how to turn your home repair skills into a profitable and enjoyable part-time or full-time handyman business that can quickly replace your day job then visit me at handymanstartup.com i'm dan perry thank you for watching and i will see you in the next video [Music] bye [Music]

Channel: Handyman Startup

Views: 987,167

Keywords:

Id: 2q1usogIYTQ

Length: 5min 1sec (301 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 11 2022