Oh boy, you know that gap there that really looks pretty bad. It is not uncommon for gaps to happen when you put in baseboard and the reason why is because the baseboard is tall and it does not bend very well and you can have dips and rises in the floor, not uncommon. How do you deal with that? I will tell you what I like to use, it is tow strip.

Tow strip is a nice molding. It is attractive. It is durable and the neat thing about it, because it is small, you can bend it. When you come to a corner, you are going to have to miter it or you have to bring the two pieces together, you can either go with the traditional miter joint which is a 45-degree angle cut on each of the two pieces or if the corner is slightly out of square, you can cope it.

Coping a piece of tow strip is very simple. Just simply cut a 45-degree angle with a miter box saw and use the saw to trace the pattern where the profiled phase needs to be angled cut. If you take your time and use the coping slide correctly, when you slide to cut piece into a full piece it will look just like a jittered joint. When you go to nail tow strip, I like to use long nails, perhaps 2 to 2-1/2 inches long. You can go right to the tow strip through the bottom of the baseboard, through the drywall and into the plate that is behind the drywall that runs continuous all the way along the floor. When the tow strip comes up again to door casing like this, always cut it at 22.5 degree angle, it looks a whole lot better.

If you want to discover more home improvement tips, go to AskTheBuilder.com.