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Damaged Baseboard

Question: We recently purchased a home that was built in 1922. We are attempting to bring it back to its original appearance. In the living room, we have a small piece of baseboard that was damaged due to a leaking window. The damaged area is only 5 inches long and I do not want to replace the entire baseboard because of a damaged 5 inch section. We have gone to numerous lumber yards and home building centers and cannot find a matching baseboard. Do you have any suggestions?

Answer: You can stop visiting any lumber yards or big box home improvement centers. They will not have a matching baseboard.

You do have a few options to find or recreate old style baseboard.

  • You can visit some of the demolition yards. These are companies that demolish older homes and buildings and save the demoed materials. You should try to take a piece of the baseboard with you, because there will be many choices and some will be very similar to one another. Trying to pick the exact piece without a sample of what you have will almost be impossible.
  • If you are competent with a router and have a good selection of router bits, you can try to make a piece that matches.
  • You can take a piece of the baseboard to a cabinet or furniture maker and ask them to reproduce a matching piece.
  • There are companies that specialize in woodwork recreations for historic homes. You can find them using an Internet search.
  • The most expensive option is to call in a furniture repair company. These companies have the ability to repair damaged woodwork, usually antique furniture, but wood is wood, by using shellac and other materials to build up any damaged areas. They will create a perfect match, but as originally stated their services are not inexpensive.

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