I took time this weekend to install the two baseboards that are part of the room, the one on the south wall and the one on the north wall. Installing these will allow me to install the baseboards in the west wall, so I can truly move on to working on the east wall.

The south baseboard has electrical and networking installed in it, while the north one has only an electrical outlet. I had to route the back of the south baseboard to make room for the networking cables, as well as cut openings for the electrical box and the network wiring.

I made a channel for the networking wires, using my stacked dado set to cut stopped grooves along the back.

grooves in the back of a baseboard

I then cut out each opening, such as this one for an electrical outlet. After marking it, I drilled four holes with my eggbeater style drill. That gave me access to use my jigsaw to cut the opening.

holes drilled for an opening

jigsawing the opening

almost done sawing

opening complete

checking that the electrical box fits

outlet mocked up

I then primed front and back of both baseboards and sanded the fronts.

Installing the boards took a while. The south one was just a bit too snug and I used a block plan to take material off the left edge. I only had to remove about 1/32" to get it to fit.

wood shavings left by the block plane

I installed the electrical and checked it and the networking before I nailed the baseboards to the wall.

south baseboard

north baseboard

I need to patch a hole in the north wall, fill the nail holes, sand the filler in the baseboards and the door trim, and get two coats of paint on everything. Later, I’ll paint and install base shoe (similar to quarteround). But I’ll do that at the same time I install cherry base shoe for the west and east walls, basically at the end of the project.

I also need to shorten and install the networking wires, but that’ll be a task for annother day.