Simple, Noob Questions for inside the home

[Reborn]

Hi everyone,

I need to redo all the flooring and paint the walls in my rental property.

1.) Is there a chance in hell I can remove all the carpet and laminate flooring without destroying the baseboards? I know they'll get scratched at a minimum, but I will be painting them. So I'm really asking if they'll get so chipped or damaged to the point where they simply need to be torn out with the old flooring. If it's 50/50 depending on how careful the contractor is, that is helpful too.

2.) What's the best order to do this? I'm thinking flooring, then baseboards (if needed), then paint. I didn't do it that way last time and I feel like my lesson learned was go from the ground up. Painters tell you to paint last, floorers tell you to floor last.

I've only done this once and was redoing the baseboards anyway, so we tore them out with the old flooring.

Thanks!

 

[Shiftless]

Floors last.
After my FIL passed and after the estate sale cleared it out 100%, I and another son-in-law painted the entire interior of his old 4 bedroom 2 bath house to prepare it for selling. Except for the baths of course, it was all old worn and mismatched wall to wall carpeting. It was great rolling the ceiling and walls without caring at all about drips onto the floor. No dropcloths needed! After that, the old oak flooring was professionally refinished.

 

[WisJim]

If the carpet or laminate was installed correctly the baseboard should be over the flooring so the baseboard probably needs to be taken out. You should start at top when finishing, ceiling, then walls, then floors, finally trim. And use dropcloths no matter what, it will save you time cleaning up or save time and money if you have it hired out.

 

[Copymutt]

Remove base boards w/ minimal damage.
A pair of 3”-6” putty knives and a wedge. Wedge can be screwdriver, wood shim, wide face chisel. Get one putty knife behind the board, tease a gap, insert the second knife, tease again, place the wedge between both knives and widen the gap. Work the length instead of trying to free just a section at a time.

 

[BillK]

I dont know about the laminate but I cant say I have ever seen carpet installed under the baseboards. And if the laminate was done after the original build I would bet the same is true there.

 

[duneslider]

You should be able to remove all flooring without damaging the baseboards. I'm a flooring guy so I always wanted all the other trades done first so my floors didn't get hurt but more and more flooring is going in first. As long as the painter is good about masking and covering then it goes fine and it seems the pricing is better than them painting and then coming back to do all the touchup and fixes that happen after the floor guy dings everything up.

 

[Reborn]

Thanks everyone. I'll paint first, and I'll aim to just leave the baseboards in place (and re-paint them). The carpet installer says they can do it without touching the baseboards (the carpet is tucked under). And I'm leaning toward not replacing the laminate flooring - we'll see what shape it's in when the tenants move out.