What baseboard installation costs in Northwest Georgia, and what hanging an interior door runs

What these jobs typically run in Northwest Georgia

Baseboard usually runs $6 to $14+ per foot. Hanging an interior door in an existing frame usually runs $300 to $500+ a door. Neither is a quote for your house; use them to check one, since a figure far outside the range is worth a question.

Baseboard is priced by length, so measure your rooms before you compare quotes: a 12 by 12 bedroom has 48 feet of wall, less the width of each doorway. Most jobs land inside the range, and rooms full of corners or a fussy profile run past the top.

One replaced length of baseboard falls under our $180 minimum job charge, so pair it with other repairs: the guide to batching small jobs shows how.

What moves baseboard up or down the range

Footage is the start, and the rest is how much work each foot takes. A long straight wall goes fast. A room with six corners, a closet and a bay takes the same footage and a lot more time, because every corner is a cut and every cut gets fitted. Two quotes for the same room can differ only in how much of the work below each foot price carries.

If the floor is going down new as well, the order matters. Trim goes on, or comes off and goes back on, after the flooring, and what LVP usually runs covers that side of the bill.

• Corners. Inside corners get coped or mitered to fit, outside corners get mitered, and a house that's out of square turns every one of them into a custom cut.
• Profile and material. A flat primed board is the quick end. A tall profile with a cap, or stain-grade wood that has to be matched and kept clean, takes more material and more time.
• The walls and the floor. Neither is flat in an older house, so the board needs scribing or a bead of caulk along the gap, and plaster fights a nail.
• What comes off first. Pulling old trim, patching the wall behind it and hauling it away all happen before the new board goes up.
• The finish. A primed board still needs filled nail holes, caulk along the top and paint.

Is it the baseboard that's failing, or the floor?

A board that's black, swollen or soft along its bottom edge usually isn't a trim problem. Water reached it from the floor side, and a new board over the top hides the evidence. Probe it before anybody quotes a replacement: how to tell repair from replacement walks through the test, and a floor that gives underfoot beside it is a different read, covered in what a soft spot in the floor means.

If the board is dry and sound and only the gap along the top has opened, that's movement in the house. Caulk and a few nails in the right place usually settle it.

Rot or a failed patch behind old trim is how a trim job grows. We say so before the work starts, and you should expect the same from anybody who quotes it.

What moves a door job

Hanging a door in the frame you already have means cutting hinge mortises to match, boring for the latch and trimming the edges to an even gap. A pre-hung unit comes with its own frame and goes into the rough opening, which is a different job, so don't hold a pre-hung quote against this range.

A door you bought yourself changes the number, so say so when you ask.

• The frame. A jamb that's out of square, hinge mortises worn oversize, or a strike a previous owner moved all make the fit slower.
• The door itself. Hollow core is light. Solid core and solid wood are heavy and want longer hinge screws, and a heavy door on a weak jamb is how doors start to drop.
• The finish. A primed slab still needs paint, and any edge that gets cut needs sealing.
• The hardware. Reusing your knob and hinges or supplying new ones changes the number.
• The trim. If the casing has to come off to get a door in or out, it has to go back on and be touched up.

Casing and exterior doors are priced differently

Don't price casing, the trim around a door or window opening, off the baseboard figure, or an exterior door off the interior one. Both are different jobs.

Casing follows how many sides need it, how many mitered corners that makes, whether the profile matches the rest of the house and how flat the wall behind it is. An exterior door adds a threshold, weatherstripping, a lock bore, flashing and a look at the wood around the sill, because that's where water hides. Garage doors are a different trade altogether.

Which of this you can do yourself

Re-nailing a loose board, filling and caulking gaps and touching up the paint are homeowner jobs with no real downside. Nail into the studs, since finish nails in drywall alone work loose, and a magnet on a string finds them.

Replacing a few feet is within reach if you can cut a clean miter and you'll spend an hour practicing on scrap. Inside corners are where it shows. Butt the first board square into the corner, then cut the second to follow the profile of the first. Plain mitered inside corners tend to open as the wood dries.

A door is harder. Swapping a hollow core slab for a matching one is doable with a sharp chisel and patience, but the hinge mortises have to line up and the gap has to come out even. If yours only sticks, fix the hinge before buying anything, because the top hinge is usually the culprit. Hand off stained trim that has to match, plaster walls, a frame that's out of square and any exterior door.

Which to keep and which to replace

Keep what's sound. Baseboard that's dry, straight and only scuffed can come off, get patched behind and go back up, which also saves an old profile that's hard to match.

Replace what water has touched. A board that's swollen, soft or stained along the bottom has been wet, so it comes out only after the wet is dealt with, and a new one hung over a damp wall goes the same way.

Doors follow the same rule. A solid slab that's straight and only rubs is a hinge problem, and it stays. A slab that's warped, split or holed, or hung in a frame that's rotted at the bottom, is the one worth replacing. An exterior door that lets water in at the sill needs the sill looked at as well as the door.

For trim and doors, send the details through door repair and installation or home repair.

Questions that come with this one