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My daughter and son-in-law did a kitchen renovation, but there is some finish work still to do. The pic says it all:

enter image description here

As you can see the kitchen base board is thicker and has a different profile from the thinner base board in the living room. Also, there is a step down from the kitchen to the living room and I don't think both base boards are at the same height. (not my pic)

Other then replacing the living room baseboard, what other options are there to make it look nice?

The only thing I can think of is return the ends and leave it at that.

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    Curious how it turned out. Might be worth posting the picture as an answer with brief description of what you ended up doing.
    – AaronLS
    Mar 10, 2019 at 20:08

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The simple fix would be to set a piece of base at an angle to connect both tops. and notch the bottom edge to go over the difference in the floor. The profiles at the top are pretty close to being the same profile and can be "faired in" together by a little finesse by sanding. The difference in thickness does not look to be that much different to be a concern, it will just need the protruding edge sanded flush and painted, done it many times with material 1/8" thicker than the other.

Another way is to remove the shortest piece of base on the high floor side and rip it so it is not as high to get the tops level with each other. Sometimes the difference is so great from one piece of base on one side of a door to the next piece on the other side of the door, (this is where I have made the transition in most of my cases) reduce it a slight bit less in the same room so the difference is not so noticeable right off. This may have not been the best way to explain it. I have also used taller base to do the same thing.

The way I would fix this situation is a takeoff on Jimmy's answer, but taking it to a different finish.

Remove the corner molding all around the opening, measure the width of the wall from finish wall to finish wall, (1X6 may do it, most walls are 4 1/2"-5" wide) to get the width a new jamb. Rip the material to fit the width of the wall to reline the the opening in 1X material, notching the bottom of the new jamb to step down over the different levels of floor, and if needed cutting the transition strip back 1/4" more to make room for the 1X material. After that is set, get door casing and trim out both sides of the wall, cutting the base shorter to allow the base to finish at the outside edge new applied casing which will allow the base to terminate in a place that will not be visible at the opening.

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  • I think sloping the top of the trim will accent the fact that they do not match.
    – Lee Sam
    Mar 24, 2018 at 16:43
  • @LeeSam That is one of the first solutions, the simplest. I will elaborate on two more solutions in a bit, I ran out of time on the first part
    – Jack
    Mar 24, 2018 at 19:48
  • I like #2 because it appears that the base heads for a nearby corner in the kitchen. Lopping an inch off shouldn't jump out at anyone but the most persnickety. Mar 25, 2018 at 15:41
  • I usually don't let the difference happen in a corner, I have tapered base over a given run, usually not over a 1/4" in any piece, then the difference, in my opinion would then be detectable. I have found base taller to help bury the difference, the ogee top base is available in many widths and the heights can be broken up on a few walls if need be
    – Jack
    Mar 25, 2018 at 15:48
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    I finally got around to looking at the situation in person and realized that the pic was misleading to me. We are going with #2. Turns out that the base board in the kitchen is only 4 or so feet long and dead ends under a cabinet toe kick. So we are going to pop that off, scribe a piece for the transition and cut down the height on the kitchen part - it's maybe an inch at most and nobody will notice it. Taking out the kitchen base board reduced the complexity of the problem to a straight forward solution. Thanks very much for your very complete solutions.
    – Jim
    Mar 27, 2018 at 18:58
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enter image description here

It is called a miter drop. Check Instagram or the web or a good trim carpentry book. It's not as complex as it looks and it is the right way to do it.

The person whose image this is has many versions shown on his page including wrapping around a corner and is an amazing carpenter.

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  • Hello, and welcome to Home Improvement. Thanks for the answer; keep 'em coming! May 17, 2019 at 15:05
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Consider attaching a smooth board, like a 1 X 6 ripped to the correct width, from top to bottom of the opening. Both baseboards could then just end into it, and instead of the corner molding that currently finishes your wall ends you would just caulk and paint where the paneling meets the 1 X 6 or trim it with 1/4 round molding.

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