TIL a 3/8 inch gap under the baseboard can hide a lot of bad cuts

I was rushing a vinyl plank job in a Phoenix condo and didn't cut the last row perfectly straight, so I just left a bigger gap than usual under the trim. The homeowner's friend, who does trim work, came by and said it actually made the base shoe install easier and hid a slight floor dip we missed. Has anyone else found a small mistake that ended up being a better way to do things?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_julia2mo ago

My buddy once forgot a tile spacer and the crooked line looked way more interesting.

haydenj902mo ago

But is a perfect tile job really that important? Sometimes the flaws make things more fun to look at, right?

ellis.rose19d ago

Someone did a study on this actually, they found people prefer hand-made tiles with tiny gaps over machine-perfect ones because the human eye finds some variety calming. My cousin's kitchen has a deliberate pattern where every fourth tile is slightly rotated, and honestly it makes the whole room feel alive instead of cold. So yeah, flaws can be the whole point, not just an accident to hide.