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We recently purchased a resale house, which is about 25 years old. I just noticed there is a gap where the floor, wall and stair (leading to basement) meet. The gap seems pretty big (about 1 cm). This was not caught by the inspector.

Is this something to be concerned of or I can simply caulk it?

where the issue is. A washroom is a few step below the main floor towards basement the gap, about 1cm

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OK - based on picture at the bottom you need to:

  • extend the trim - marked in yellow
  • mud/tape/sand pant the area in red all the way up into the top trim

That is the easy option and could look great for years.

The other option is buy trim/pine-board and cut out a triangle so that you form a rectangle where that wall is cracking. Based on the indention and cracking it looks like the wall above may be sitting on something less stable and moving - that triangle looks awfully out of place and I usually see that on wall over concrete.

Note that if this is moving around seasonally that much you may just need to cover the entire area with something more flexible - wainscoting, planks, etc.

enter image description here

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  • Thanks - what do you mean by moving seasonally?
    – elty123
    Commented Feb 17, 2021 at 21:26
  • In the summer wood expands as does other things. Concrete expands way less. So as things are getting bigger at different rates you get gaps in areas like this. It is pretty normal and not alarming at all... and a PITA to make look nice permanently.
    – DMoore
    Commented Feb 17, 2021 at 21:28

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