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We new to home improvements. We are getting carpet area on upperfloor hallway replaced with hardwood. The contractor cut the baseboard to fit the hardwoods in, on one part we saw 2 hardwoood atleast 3-4 inches extra inside the wall. This wall is just opposite to stairs so we could see it. He says the shoe molding covers it all but I am afraid he damaged our drywall. Is it the common way the hardwood gets installed? or we have been fooled by contractor.

There is broken base board and wall behind this shoe molding. Also having edges of hardwood inside the wall. I am so disheartened. Is there solution to fix this problem? Or leave it alone with shoe molding covering it up? enter image description here

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  • It could be that you have wide floor planks and one strip had to be cut narrower to fill the gap at the wall and this is 100% normal and expected. However, without pictures, we can't tell. – FreeMan Dec 4 '20 at 13:32
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    It's trivial to remove that shoe molding, take a picture, and then nail it back into place. You just need some finishing nails. – MonkeyZeus Dec 4 '20 at 13:58
  • That's a great start! So far, I'm not seeing an issue, so a nice close up showing exactly what the problem is would be very helpful. The only thing that catches my eye is that the shoe moulding is wider than the door casing and, on the right-hand door, it looks odd from this angle. – FreeMan Dec 4 '20 at 14:55
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    @FreeMan The shoe molding near door casing problem is unfortunately all too common. The installer should have cut the end at an angle so that there is a more seamless transition from baseboard to door casing. – MonkeyZeus Dec 4 '20 at 15:00
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    Even with the photo I'm not sure what's being asked here. 3-4 inches under the wall is almost out the other side of the wall. That doesn't make sense. At any rate, it looks fine to me. What am I missing? – isherwood Dec 4 '20 at 15:49
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If your baseboard goes down to the subfloor then I would be very surprised that the installer took the time to cut into it so that hardwood would go under it. If the contractor has a specialty tool for this which makes the endeavor take seconds instead of using an oscillating multi-tool then that would be cool.

Anyways, the baseboard was probably cut unevenly so brand new shoe molding is designed explicitly to hide the imperfections where your floor meets the baseboard; regardless of whether the floor goes under the baseboard or butts up right against it.

What exactly is the issue if hidden drywall was damaged a little bit?

In your mind what exactly would make things right or better? Based on your worries "making it right" is going to be expensive.

Overall, the install looks fairly proper. Patch the holes and add a fresh coat of paint on your baseboard and shoe molding and it will look great.

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