Wednesday, December 20th, 2006 | Popularity: 15%
Making the situation even harder is the fact that the architect has called for stain grade wood to be used. Again, this is possible but difficult. To ensure that the trim follows the undulations of the walls properly, you may need to use 1/2″ stock rather than 3/4″so that the material remains flexible. In addition, you may need to score the back side of the trim to allow it even more flexibility. This is almost always required in corners where the trim is forced to make deep bends to stay tight to the wall. When installing the trim, be sure to use nails and glue to hold it in place. Nails alone may allow the trim to pull away from the wall in places. If you can use paint grade trim, you will find it easier to bridge the gaps with caulk and paint; however, keep the trim as tight to the wall as you can because caulk and paint are no substitute for wood/wall contact.
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Wow. Time flies. It has been a week since I last posted and I sure don’t want to start making that the norm. Sorry to all you daily blog readers for the long gaps in between blogs. I have been really busy in the field and thus short on time at the computer. Anyway, let’s get to it!
We are currently building a house where the architect has called for base board trim to be used throughout. That is fairly standard delivery for most homes; however, is much more difficult in bale homes due to the undulations in the bale walls and the large curves in corners.
Making the situation even harder is the fact that the architect has called for stain grade wood to be used. Again, this is possible but difficult. To ensure that the trim follows the undulations of the walls properly, you may need to use 1/2″ stock rather than 3/4″so that the material remains flexible. In addition, you may need to score the back side of the trim to allow it even more flexibility. This is almost always required in corners where the trim is forced to make deep bends to stay tight to the wall. When installing the trim, be sure to use nails and glue to hold it in place. Nails alone may allow the trim to pull away from the wall in places. If you can use paint grade trim, you will find it easier to bridge the gaps with caulk and paint; however, keep the trim as tight to the wall as you can because caulk and paint are no substitute for wood/wall contact.
In many homes, we eliminate the bas board trim entirely and finish our plaster to the floor. This is hard to do if a floating floor or wood floor is installed as a gap is required against the wall for expansion. That gap is usually hidden by the trim. For that reason, planning is required for your finish trim when you are building the walls and plastering them. You will need to know what type of flooring will be installed and how that will finish to the wall. You don’t want t o spend the extra time plastering tight to the floor only to realize you will have to install base trim.
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Andrew Morison is a licensed contractor specializing in straw bale and green construction. He has shown thousands of people how to build their own straw bale projects through his comprehensive series of instructional straw bale, concrete foundation, and plastering DVDs. You can check these out at http://www.LearnStrawBale.com.
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September 13th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Wouldn’t you need to do something special when plastering if you don’t plan on using base trim? I assume the plaster would get knocked off of the wall while sweeping the floors, etc… How do you protect the plaster?
September 13th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
You do have to take extra care to adhere th eplaster to the wall along the base. The final coat of plaster should be applied over a base adhesive to help with this. There are several available and most finish plasters require the use of one over the entire wall surface. Other than that, try not to whack the walls too hard when sweeping! In all seriousness, plaster is brittle and so relative care should be taken not to abuse the walls.