The wallpaper also often leaves stains on the wall even after it is removed. Use Easysand or Durabond to repair the damaged finish coat unless you have a source of lime putty. Durabond is so hard it is very difficult to sand. Easysand is just that, easier to sand. Both are setting type joint compounds. You should use a bonding agent on the areas needing repair. It prevents the old plaster from absorbing water the new material needs to cure correctly. EUCO WELD is a good brand. If you cannot find plaster bonding agent use Elmer's white glue cut 50% with water. In either case, paint the agent on and wait for it to get tacky before putting the patch on top.

Hi Katie, my apologies for the delay in responding to your comment. I've been traveling over the holidays and rare access to a computer. I did end up caulking the gap between the baseboard and the wall. For cleaning gunk out of cracks, I'm starting to like using the bamboo skewers used for grilling that you can get at the supermarket. I had a batch of them in my cupboard and gave one a try and it worked so well, that I'm using them first in situations where I need something pointy. The bamboo is soft enough that it doesn't scratch anything, and I can dampen it and it'll pick up extraneous paper that's stuck in the crack. For some pieces of gunk in the crack, I also used a pair of needle-nose pliers, to extract the pieces. And, while I don't know if it's a bad thing to do, sometimes a piece of gunk would just fall more into the gap between the baseboard and wall, and I left it there. :-) I figured it would just get sealed under the line of caulk afterwards. Wear eye protection! Even if you don't think you need it, wear safety goggles, or at least your eyeglasses if you wear glasses. One day, I was caulking the baseboards in one of our bedrooms for the insulating value, and as I dragged my finger along, a chip of paint flew up off the baseboard toward my face. Since then, I always wear my goggles. About tips for caulking: - Do a search on YouTube for caulking. It really helped me to see videos of people actually doing it. - Get a good caulking gun. I got one from Lowes or Home Depot (I forget which one--I've been in and out of each so much these past weeks!) that was in the $10 range. I love its trigger mechanism. - Hold the gun at a 45 degree angle to both the wall and to the baseboard gap. I mean, this is in three dimensions: as you put the tube tip to the baseboard gap, make sure that it is a 45 degree angle between it and the vertical wall and a 45 degree angle between it and the horizontal-running gap line. (Hope that makes sense--it's hard to explain in words vs a picture. That's why the YouTube videos are so helpful.) - Do not make the hole in the tube too large when you cut it. The hole should not be larger than the gap you're trying to fill. And there was a post on one of these forums about tapering the hole that I thought was useful. While I can't find the posting this moment, I'll add the link when I locate it. Hope this helps! Lee

newhomebuilder, sorry I couldn't get logged again until now. We had painted first, then this other stuff came up. Painter taped off the new floor but not the walls as he said he preferred to cut it in. He's been a wonder since the last horrible painters so I'm letting him do his thing. As I type, he is finishing all the touch-ups. The walls are all BM Flowering Herbs which I absolutely love.

This will be a traditional T&G, nail-down floor. No one has mentioned undercutting either - I guess they just don't quote for things like that unless you ask. The existing baseboards are a knotty pine, pretty solid I think, but they have never been removed as this carpet is original to the house. But now that I think about it, it probably would not make sense to remove them due to the following. The 2 rooms (dining and living) that are getting wood floors, are adjoining but have a wide transitional doorway. I have redone the dining room as part of an overall kitchen/dining update. I left floors for last because I was so uncertain as to what I wanted. You can see in this picture where all the trim in the dining room is now painted. I am very pleased with how it looks now (I was SO over the knotty pine trim in there - crown, chair rail, and baseboard - it was overwhelming). Choosing a wood floor has been difficult because I really do not want more brown/orange tones on the floor. So whatever I wind up with, it most certainly will not match the existing baseboard color in the living room Of course, it will be fine in the dining room since those are now painted. I had honestly not even thought about the trim color in the other room until I started bringing home samples. I laid them down on the floor and had an "oh crap" moment. :-/ But after doing some research, it looks like that really isn’t that much of an issue? I was pondering whether I should embark on yet another major painting project now, before I get wood floors in there. And to rip off those nice freshly painted and caulked baseboards in the dining room would be hard to swallow, given all the work I did. With adding shoe mold, then a decision definitely needs to be made. Either stain to match baseboard, or paint both, white. Lord this is such a pain....it’s almost tempting to just get new carpet!! The pic below shows my oh crap moment - one of several LOL. This is NOT the wood I will be getting - I've not made a decision yet but whatever I get will probably have more gray/neutral colors than this. This is a Kahrs sample, which I thought was not bad but it is floating/gluedown only. Thoughts??