Hiding Nails In Wood Door Trim And Baseboard
Installing baseboard or door trim is straightforward work. I love using a compressor and nail gun…it makes for fast and accurate work. However, most beginners don’t have these tools and stick with a hammer and nail set. This works great too. How do you hide the nail head after nailing the wood? It is actually pretty easy.
If you are going to paint the baseboard or door trim, countersink the nail just below the surface with a nailset. This is a stiff tool with a point on the end of it. Set the point onto the head of the nail and give it a tap to sink it. Then just fill in the divot with wood putty, sand it and paint.
The process gets a little trickier for baseboard and door trim that you are going to stain and finish. This means you will see the grain of the wood, which makes this method so attractive. The problem with using wood putty to fill in nail holes is that it accepts stain differently than the surrounding wood. This leaves you with a noticeable mark and it can be unsightly. The secret here is placement of the nail. Yes you want to hit the nail into the lumber behind the drywall. But the trick is to hit it into the grain.
Wood grain, especially open grained wood like oak, stains darker then the surrounding wood, just like wood putty. So, if you can locate a position that will both hit the grain and lumber behind the wall, that is the sweet spot. You may still notice the mark left by the wood putty, but since it is in the darker stained grain, most people won’t even notice it.