Remove baseboards before installing laminate floors?

[Lauren M.]

What is the correct way to install laminate floors? Should all baseboards and door trim be removed before laying the floor and then you add baseboards back after the floor is installed? Or is it okay to add the flooring without removing the baseboards and add a quarter round after the floors are laid? This is for a rental property and it seems tedious to pull up all the baseboards, but we don't want to cut corners either...

[Bob H.]

If you don't remove the baseboards, they'll look too short when you cover up the bottom of them with the new flooring, regardless of whether you add quarter round. It is a lot of work, though. My process:

1. Cut caulk between wall and baseboard and pry off baseboard.
2. Pull nails through back side of baseboard.
3. Scrape caulk off wall and touch up bad spots with wallboard compound.
4. Install underlayment and flooring.
5. Sand and paint baseboard.
6. Install baseboard, sinking in nails with a nail set.
7. Fill nail holes with wood filler and sand after filler dries.
8. Caulk top of baseboard to wall with clear caulk. (Be sure not to caulk baseboard to floor. It will be a mess.)
9. Paint wood filler and caulked top of baseboard, overlapping trim paint onto wall a little.
10. Tape top of baseboard with Frog tape or equivalent.
11. Paint bottom of wall at tape edge.
12. Remove tape.