Tricks to laying out baseboards?

Now far out of level?? If you set the baseboards level, everything will look out of whack. Make the baseboards conform to the house.

The base has some "give" to it so you can "adjust" (to some extent) to compensate. Use "gauge blocks" (scrap pieces of wood) to set your base on at the height you want to set it off of the floor (generally 3/8" - 1/2"). Start nailing in the corner and work your way down the piece pushing it down where it's sitting high and prying it up where it's low. As Bill said, it won't look right if it's not a (fairly) uniform height off of the floor. If you're carpeting, the carpet won't "tuck" under the base if there's not enough space....

You still follow the floor. If the corners are bad, you may have to cut at compound angles to handle the vertical angle incurred from one floor out of level and the other not. 3 dimensional trim..oh what fun.

gone_fishing said:

I am getting ready to put in trim. The room isn't level. How do I lay out the baseboards? Find the highest and lowest points and decide on a level to start from?

Thanks!

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What you do will depend on the type of finished floor you will have. If you have a carpet, you can fudge a bit and raise the molding off the floor a bit to make the corners a little easier. If you have hardwood, I'd recommend a two part base system. The base molding and then a shoe molding or something similar to take up the gaps that will surely appear under the main molding.
Ron