Surprise! Hole in the wall!

 Working on the living room, and decided to see how far the insect damage went. Rather than strip the trim, I'd resolved to just replace it. It's true 1" x 6.5" base board boards - nothing fancy - no molding, just a slight bevel at the top that isn't noticeable unless you're me. So I got out the tools and gave it a go.

The damage. This had been full of caulk until I hit it with heat and it turned to bubble gum on my scraper. It's been a while since I addressed this. Most of the wood in this section was hollow flakes between the chewed out cells.

I blew through the hollow section, yanked part of the board, and found what I'd suspected - The trim is original, and there had been plaster above (bits of plaster keys remained in the wall.) They replaced the plaster with drywall at some point, but didn't pull the trim and run the drywall behind it - they just stacked the drywall on top of the base board. And it seems like super thin drywall.

 

This base board is held on with square spikes - very rusty spikes. This stuff does not want to come off. It's not going to be as simple as "pull of old, insert new". It's going to be a challenge on how to fix the walls. Do I extend the drywall down? That would certainly make the room warmer, but it's going to add time I didn't factor in.

In other news, Bathroom Guy called - I'm #2 on his list, and he should be by to measure the living room windows at some point this week. (So exciting!)