The Indestructable Baseboards

Thanks to Father-In-Law and his speedy work with the floor tiles, we had a whole day to work on something extra on our trip in last week.

Baseboards.

Since we hadn't planned on having time to tackle baseboards and it was Black Friday and I didn't want to have to punch someone trying to get 1x4's and you know our loathing of crowds, we were left in a 1x4 situation.

Family, always there when you need them. Even when you just need 1x4's.

Big Brother offered to cut some 1 inch planks down for us.

In the stack, he had pine. Perfect.

At the bottom...

There was some nice oak close to the top. Big Brother said we would need to use screws instead of nails, not a problem. We just so happened to get Mr. Z a nice big drill before we left and he was itching to use it.

So, let the cutting begin.

And the painting.

And the measuring and re-cutting.

Now for the grand finale of putting them up!

...At least we thought...

That oak that we cut, painted, and cut again is apparantly indestructable.

The new 18v drill and the wood screws were no match for the wonderful hardwood.

Daddy told us to put WD-40 on the screws and that might help. Another wonder of WD-40!

He said that Pawpaw used to spit on nails to make them go through hardwood.

 If the WD-40 didn't work, then we would just have to drill the holes first then put in the screws. 

We did both just to cover our bases.

Hold the board in place, drill hole, change bits, spray the screw with WD-40, drill the screw in, change bits, and repeat. 

We were really on a roll.

At least until we ran out of studs to attach the baseboards to.

I'm not kidding.

They just aren't where they are supposed to be.

We tried the stud-finder, but it even got confused.

We think they didn't have enough long boards that would reach from floor to ceiling so in some places they used horizontal studs.

Since the floors and walls aren't really flat and level, I don't think wood glue will really hold them, especially against the card-board walls.

We may end up just propping them against the wall. We are going to have furniture that will hide most of them anyway, right? We will just put a sign up that says to please re-prop the baseboards when you knock them down. No biggie.

We only got part of the kitchen done.

Once they are screwed, taped, glued, and plastered up, I think they will look really nice.