How To Paint A Baseboard With or Without Carpeting

If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way.  If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.
                                                                               ~Unknown

I must be getting older!  I can remember when I redecorated a room and could paint or wallpaper it within days and it was finished.  Now, we're talking weeks and months!  I started working in our bedroom about a month ago, first sanding and priming all the woodwork.  I had Mr. Cottage paint the walls along the ceiling and then I finally painted the walls in mid February.  I have to do things in baby steps now.  So next I painted the trim around all the doors and windows and there everything sat until today.  I'm happy to say it's FINISHED!  I saved the baseboards for last.  I did a posting back in August about how to paint baseboards with carpeting, but didn't go into a lot of detail.  You can read and see photos here.  I had used some of our packing tape we got from our movers, but you can see I switched to using the one shown below...

Because it's clear and hard to see, I added some Frog Tape, which also extended the width for me.  We sure don't want paint on the carpet...

Because I just finished the walls in mid-February, I wasn't sure on how cured the paint was, so for the walls I used Scotch Blue Painter's Tape with the ORANGE.  It has lower tack and is less apt to remove any paint...

But to make sure that paint didn't seep in along the edge, I used my Anthropology member's card.  I save old hotel key cards but I didn't want to walk down to the lower level to get mine.  I rubbed the tape along the top of the baseboard to help seal the edge...

If you find there's a gap in a few places between the wall and baseboard, as shown below...

make the tape come down a bit lower on the baseboard so you can tuck it in...

As soon as I finished the second coat of paint, I removed all the tape that was on the walls.  Don't wait too long or it make take off more paint that you want, but at the same time you don't want it too wet. 

I let the paint dry for about an hour longer and then I removed it from the carpeting.  Pull the tape right or left to get it up.  Don't pull straight up, or it may remove some of the paint, like shown below...

I have to say that other than the photo above, everything else turned out perfect...

Even Miss Molly gave her approval of a job well done...

As soon as the weather starts to warm up and get a bit nicer, we'll get the carpeting cleaned, and get everything we need to start using our master bedroom, starting with a mattress.


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Cozy Little House
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