How to install trim with bullnose corners

When we refinished our floors (see this blogpost https://craftytravelgirl.blogspot.com/2021/09/how-to-refinish-hardwood-floors-diy.html) we decided that it would be a good time to upgrade our trim. We had the basic trim throughout our house and we knew it would get destroyed during the sanding process. 

Choosing a baseboard- everything's always a process with me 

    Now I did some research as to the best trim for the best price square footage. At first I wanted to upgrade to the 5-6 inch thick ones. Obviously those are super expensive and I quickly discovered that they would not work well in my house because we have forced air vents that are only 5 inches off the ground. This would mean that we would have to cut trim around all of our forced air vents and I wasn't about that life. 

    Now I had seen a trick that my husband's uncle had done in his house to save money but have thick trim. He cut pieces of MDF board into 5 inch sections, painted them and then purchased a less expensive "head trim" piece and attached it to the top of the MDF board. If you are painting your trim this looked good. Most people really don't look that closely at trim and it fooled me until he pointed it out. 

    I looked into doing this method described above but it was still going to be a lot of work to buy 4x8 sheets of MDF and rip them into 4 inch sections. But then we were at Home Depot buying wood for our guest room bed (see this blog post for more info https://craftytravelgirl.blogspot.com/2021/09/diy-farmhouse-bed.html) and I discovered these lovely things called "Pro Packs" which is bulk trim. This ended up being the cheapest option for us while still being an upgrade from our existing trim. The only con to these is that they only come in 12 ft sections- we have an 8ft car so the drive home was super fun but it was so worth it in the end. I would recommend researching these if you are planning on replacing a lot of trim. 

                                                

This based board is bigger but clears our vents so we didn't have to cut around it

Ok so I finally picked a baseboard- now the fun part- or not. 

    So when we moved in to our house I noticed that all the corners were rounded but I didn't think that much of it- that is until we went to do trim. Apparently these lovely rounded corners are called "bullnose corners" and they are created by the devil. Supposedly they are supposed to be fancy but I don't really see it. After talking to people at work apparently they are just the normal thing in this area and everyone looked at me like I was crazy for complaining about them. 

    So at first I was like "screw bullnose corners I'll just miter the trim." My dad and my husband ended up talking me out of this idea. I also saw a youtube video where someone did this and it looked terrible So we started researching how to  do this without making 8 million cuts and killing each other.  The biggest concept to understand is what angle to cut each piece of bullnose corner at.

Materials list for Bullnose Corners trim application 

- Tape measure

- Miter saw (with the ability to adjust to angles- I think they all do this but just in case)

-Nail gun/ Nails 

- Wood glue

-Bullnose trim guage (search for it on amazon)

-Digital Angle measure (if you have some walls that are at weird angles in your house)

-Wood filler and caulk 

Installing Bullnose Trim

By far the best investment we made was purchasing the bullnose trim gauge. This is relatively inexpensive and provides you with a measuring point for your piece.

The trick to cutting bullnose angles is to make 4 cuts at 22.5 degrees. This should be a option on your miter saw.  22.5 X4= 90 which gives you a right angle. To cover the rounded part of the corner you need to cut a 3/4" piece of trim with a 22.5 degree cut on each side. 

This is a guide I made for what angle to cut each piece at for the bullnose corner. It can be really confusing to alternate between the right and left angle at 22.5 degrees. 

So our process- we would mark the corner with our bullnose trim gauge. Then we would cut the 3/4" piece.  After that we would cut both sides and we wound not nail them in until it lined up perfectly. We found that the pieces looked better if we glued one of the pieces to the bullnose piece and let it sit for a few minutes before we nailed it in. 

Do not nail in the 3/4" piece- it will split and look bad. Just glue it in. 

Despite this did we mess up sometimes and have to do recuts and touch up cuts? Yes. That is just the joys of trim work. But I feel like the trim guage cut down on a lot of the guesswork and cutting and recutting that we would've done.

Other tips for Bullnose corners and trim installation in general: 

-Max found that he got the most accurate measurement from measuring the back of the trim and marking for the cut at the top of the trim. This gave him a nice line that he could use to align with the miter saw before making the cut. 

-Have a template of the 3/4" piece- this allows you to dry fit the pieces and helps when you are trying to make cuts on bigger pieces to determine which way to cut 22.5 degrees 

- Plan on wood filling and touching up- I cannot tell you how much better this makes everything look. 

- For cracks that are bigger than what the wood filler can handle go for white caulk. I also usually caulk between the wall and the trim if there is a big gap. I can not impress on you how much this makes such a big difference!! My dad's famous line for this is "Caulk and paint for the carpenters we ain't" and I wholeheartly agree with this statement 

Overall- I really like my upgraded trim. I still think the bullnose corners look dumb and if I ever build a house I will do mitered corners but overall I consider this project a success.