Molding Over Lips in Walls

Drywall to Drywall Seams

• Sometimes an improperly installed sheet of drywall will not butt up neatly against the adjoining piece. Many a homeowner has been tempted to simply cover the lip with a piece of molding to hide the mistake. Instead of covering up the lip with molding, consider backing out the screws in the piece that is sunken-in and using shims to build it out. Remove the screws a few turns in the drywall, and place a shim between the back of the drywall and the stud. Tighten the screws until the piece matches up with the adjoining drywall and use joint compound on the seam.

Tile Wall to Floor

• Tile walls in bathrooms and kitchens will often have a small "lip" or half-circle end to the bottom of the wall tiles. This makes adding baseboard molding more complicated than in more traditional installations. If you don't want to remove the offending tile, use a hand rotary tool to notch out the bottom of the baseboard molding so that it sits flat against the wall. Use a barrel sanding tip and take it slow, testing the fit from time to time and removing high spots.

Wall to Ceiling

• Wall to ceiling transitions can usually be made with quarter-round molding. A ceiling and wall joint can have a lip that requires a larger piece of molding, or crown molding, to make the transition smoothly. If larger pieces of molding do not fit your particular style, there are commercial products available that are designed to sit between two pieces of drywall and create a clean right angle. They resemble chicken wire and will sit neatly in the corner you want to make plumb, allowing you to joint compound over them.

Vertical Lips

• Sometimes the transition from one material to another can be made vertically on a wall. A kitchen may have a tile wall that transitions to wood paneling in an adjacent den. The two materials may join together in such a way that there is a lip, and no molding will sit evenly over the two materials. The solution here is to build up the lower material, or use a router to cut a groove in your molding. Routing may be more than the average homeowner wants to undertake, so consider taking your molding to a wood shop with a measurement of the amount you need taken off to allow the molding to sit flat.