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Design Dilemma
jloleary

Baseboard trim -- quarter round yes or no?

jloleary
vor 9 Jahren
We are in the midst of a renovation of the back of our house. So far so good -- with many, many ideas and solutions from this forum and gardenweb. As background - our house is 1870's with beautiful baseboards without quarter round. Renovated kitchen -- it was an old addition from early part of the century so never completely matched front of the house-- will also have large (8 inch tall) baseboards. Couldn't completely match up all the trim but renovation is a separate area and short of having custom made -- good enough. Would you add quarter round -- yes or no? Powder room is done so I have an example of both, plus a picture of baseboards original to house. Keep in mind this is an old addition - probably a porch at some point that we have expanded and am renovating.
Thanks for any advise
Hervorgehobene Antwort
  • Patricia Kent
    vor 9 Jahren
    I think it is fresher looking without the quarter round.

    Kommentare (47)

    • jloleary
      Ursprünglicher Verfasser
      vor 9 Jahren
      Here's the new trim with quarter round and without.
    • natandalex
      vor 9 Jahren
      We just finished a gut reno of kitchen, powder and mud rooms. 1920s home and all floors were leveled in new rooms. I asked my husband why none of the new baseboards had quarter round molding -- thought carpenter forgot -- and he commented if the floors are level you don't need it...its more to hide uneven floors and gaps. Not sure if thats true...but thats his story!
      jloleary hat natandalex gedankt
    • vjs12
      vor 9 Jahren
      I think it looks finished with the quarter round.
    • PRO
      lickity split
      vor 9 Jahren
      I would usually say never but it does look better with the short base bottom.
      jloleary hat lickity split gedankt
    • PRO
      Sound Painting Solutions, LLC
      vor 9 Jahren
      I think it looks better with the quarter round.

      Good luck:)
    • Victoria
      vor 9 Jahren
      Without. In the UK the quarter round is only used if the floor is done after the baseboard to hide the gap left for expansion. Makes it look like you've just laid new laminate flooring to a UK eye and detracts from the beauty of the renovation.
      jloleary hat Victoria gedankt
    • Naomi Sheek
      vor 9 Jahren
      I like quarter round, it prevents the vacuum from bumping and marking the baseboard.
    • Sandra L
      vor 9 Jahren
      My vote is without, looks cleaner I think.
      jloleary hat Sandra L gedankt
    • jloleary
      Ursprünglicher Verfasser
      vor 9 Jahren
      Thanks for the input - we need to let the contractor know by tomorrow. so I think that other than the powder room and the mudroom (where the quarter round is already installed) we are going to skip having it installed. It does look a bit cleaner looking without it I think. All these little details to decide!
    • fififiona
      vor 9 Jahren
      quarter round looks like an add on or poor planning
    • PRO
      Creative Property Restoration
      vor 9 Jahren
      Our vote is for the quarter round! It really finishes the baseboard and, as someone pointed out, prevents some bumps and scratches from occurring on the baseboard.
      jloleary hat Creative Property Restoration gedankt
    • Patty Scott
      vor 9 Jahren
      I vote no on q round but have to acknowledge practical concerns from the yes vote side of the issue. Uggh, good luck, either way will work.
      jloleary hat Patty Scott gedankt
    • jloleary
      Ursprünglicher Verfasser
      vor 9 Jahren
      thanks Creative Property Restoration - you do beautiful work! - we could certainly use your help on our 1880's era Victorian... so many jobs left to do. But for now and the quarter round issue, do you have a problem with the color matching the new trim. For some reason the rest of my house (including the very large original baseboards) don't have this type of shoe trim.
    • feeny
      vor 9 Jahren
      Zuletzt geändert: vor 9 Jahren
      I like it both ways, but have a slight preference for the baseboard without the quarter round. Our baseboards (c. 1929) have quarter rounds. We can't remove them because there is a gap in the floorboards beneath them. So you are lucky to have the choice. I don't happen to think it makes a difference one way or the other for vacuuming. Either the quarter round gets dinged or the baseboard does. Either way you have to touch one of them up occasionally.
      jloleary hat feeny gedankt
    • User
      vor 9 Jahren
      I prefer quarter round to match the trim, not the floor.
      jloleary hat User gedankt
    • jloleary
      Ursprünglicher Verfasser
      vor 9 Jahren
      Zuletzt geändert: vor 9 Jahren
      Here's a photo of baseboard in the rest of the house. They are about 12 inches tall. No quarter round or shoe molding as some people call it. Excuse all the dust. Not sure if the house will ever get clean again after all of this construction.
    • PRO
      TRUADDITIONS
      vor 9 Jahren
      Quarter round ends up looking like an ADD ON - Since the baseboard has already been installed AFTER the wood flooring I wouldn't add it. The picture does look nice, HOWEVER...Quarter round always looks better when its first installed. Wait a few years.
    • User
      vor 9 Jahren
      Zuletzt geändert: vor 9 Jahren
      I just checked and I have quarter round where I have my wide board pine floors because of all the movement throughout the seasons. Where I have tile and carpet I have no quarter round. I think it's perfectly fine to have it in some areas and not in others. Keep it in the powder and mud room and once you get all of your furniture in and get settled it will become a non-issue.
    • katearoni
      vor 9 Jahren
      I just added the smallest quarter round available to my baseboards. It looks finished.
    • fififiona
      vor 9 Jahren
      Quarter round is normally applied when the finish carpenters did not the scribe the base and there are gaps due to an uneven floor. When I see quarter round on a base I think less than perfect finish work.
    • G R
      vor 9 Jahren
      I say yes to quarter round. My father is a contractor & does detailed trim work. I think it dresses it up & finishes off the look. Polishes it up!
    • Lynda
      vor 9 Jahren
      I don't like quarter round, so I went without. I think it just depends on what you prefer.
    • PRO
      Closet Experts
      vor 9 Jahren
      Shoe molding would look better than quarter round. She molding is typically 3/4" tall by 1/2" thick. As mentioned previously, adding shoe molding serves to hide dips and valleys in the floor that the straight baseboard bottom accentuates. The shoe molding is more flexible to follow the flooring.
    • jloleary
      Ursprünglicher Verfasser
      vor 9 Jahren
      So thankful for all the comments! So I spoke to the contractor. Told him I didn't like the quarter round so he's going to bring me a sample of the cove shoe molding that a few posters mentioned here. I think that would be a nice compromise.
    • fififiona
      vor 9 Jahren
      if possible go without unless you need to cover large gaps due to inferior installation without scribing.
    • fififiona
      vor 9 Jahren
      whether it is shoe molding (cove) or quarter round…they are only used if there are gaps.
    • PRO
      Closet Experts
      vor 9 Jahren
      Zuletzt geändert: vor 9 Jahren
      This is shoe molding that is standard in the Chicago area wherever the flooring is not carpeting regardless of gaps or not.
    • fififiona
      vor 9 Jahren
      I am familiar with cove and quarter round…always looks like an afterthought. I only use when there is no other option.
    • PRO
      Closet Experts
      vor 9 Jahren
      Comment and photo for the original poster's benefit. I personally like the look without the shoe molding myself, but it is not my home and I am sharing common practice in our area only for the original poster's benefit. Shoe molding and quarter round are not the same, and there is a difference in appearance.
      jloleary hat Closet Experts gedankt
    • PRO
      Buyers Protection Group
      vor 7 Jahren
      Zuletzt geändert: vor 7 Jahren

      Never quarter round. As far as vacuum and mop bumps, you'll get those either way you go if the person cleaning is not careful. Ever tried to repaint quarter round? It's a pain in the posterior. And even if they don't bump it, it will get some mop water slopped on it and it's then a pain to clean that seam where it meets the baseboard. The ONLY reasons qr is ever needed is if the baseboard is thin, like 1/4 or 3/8, then the floor does not have sufficient room for expansion and contraction with the seasons, or if the floor is not quite level, or if the installer made some cuts a bit too short. QR is good for one thing, kindling in my fireplace.

    • PRO
      GN Builders L.L.C
      vor 7 Jahren

      Quarter round is used 95% in most flooring installations except carpeting for a nice clean and finished look. Some like it without it and that is fine also if you can get away without it but for some reason, it always looks like something is missing.

    • PRO
      Buyers Protection Group
      vor 7 Jahren

      GN - I'll debate that 95% number. I am an active home inspector in the Atlanta area and I see QR on maybe 25% of the homes that I handle. The number drops much lower on newer homes built in the last 10 years or so.

    • PRO
      GN Builders L.L.C
      vor 7 Jahren

      I won't debate how things are done in Atlanta because I don't know but I will take your word for it... but I know in NJ all new construction use QR.

    • PRO
      Cusano Construction Company Inc.
      vor 7 Jahren

      Personal preference, quarter round looks fine with taller more traditional baseboard. Take a wall section and run 3/4" piece of 3m Blue Clean line tape (Green Writing) on the floor close to the face of the baseboard, make sure to seal tight. Then run a tight bead of caulk, dry, then paint with baseboard. Pull after about an hour, it will be a perfect line and sealed nicely to the floor. We have applied to slab on grade floors as well as floor joist systems. Framed floors will have more movement and you will probably have to touch up in a few areas. Its another option.

    • PRO
      Mayfield Custom Woodwork
      vor 6 Jahren

      Most of the old houses in St. Louis that I work on including my 1890 folk Victorian originally had a shoe or quarter round. If it were a newer house, 1950 and after I would say go ahead leave it off. With an old house it makes me think it isn't finished yet if shoe or quarter round is left off. Make it look original, don't skimp.

    • PRO
      moico inc.
      vor 6 Jahren

      No quarter round in my opinion

    • PRO
      Yardvaark
      vor 6 Jahren
      the look without is better, cleaner, stronger. Would only use if you must cover noticeable gap.
    • PRO
      LeBlanc Design
      vor 6 Jahren

      My vote is for no quarter round. It looks like you're trying to hide a mistake :)

    • hummingalong2
      vor 6 Jahren
      No quarter round unless you need to cover a gap.
    • PRO
      East Wind DC
      vor 6 Jahren

      What dilemma, JLoleary! It doesn't really matter 3 years after your original post, but since there are over 700 threads on "quarter round", I suspect there are tons of people out there agonizing over the same dilemma. I trust that with both in your house, you have come to prefer one over the other, for good reason.

      One reason they didn't use quarter rounds back in 1870's may be because they dind't make them or if they did, why would a carpenter put a molding on a molding if the first one did its job? Today it is done as a norm because the drywall trade has the baseboard molding in his contract (why in the world that is so baffles me to no end), the flooring trade is often the last one to come in (so other trades don't damage his installation) and now there is a gap between the baseboard trim and the hardwood floor. Thus the quarter round. But now our contracting norm creates all kinds of confusion for those of us who just love those beautiful lines and curves of the molding!

      Actually, I believe there is a rather simple way out of it. Not a yes or no answer, but a process by which a satisfactory answer can be derived. There are two truly great American architects whom I admire, Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis I. Kahn. Both classists (and modernists), yet their styles are as different as night and day, with whom internal construction logic and external beauty are never divorced. Properly done, the one necessarily leads to the other.

      Traditionally, molding or trim is a practical way to conceal a construction joint between 2 surfaces that meet at 90-degree angle. Craftsmen, not being merely tradesmen, who took pride in their work not just trying to save time or increase their profit, and owners seeking magnificence in their homes, elevated it beyond functionality to beauty. Thus we have arguments based on the function of concealing a gap OR personal preference. The problem with preference as a reference is that only the owner's opinion matters in which case no second opinion matters, yet it may change from time to time (put it on, take it off, put it on, take it off). This is also why you are not sure whether you like it or not. Subjective emotions change, all the time. Pity if life & death, good or evil depend on such precariousness! Shakespear famously said that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, I would only add, in the extreme cases. If beauty isn't objectively and commonly recognized, good-looking people won't monopolize our screens, Apple won't be the richest corporation in the world.

      Appealing to common practice, though a valid reference point, is ultimately futile. Statistics is never adequate to settle questions of aesthetics or convention. Your house is, after all, yours and yours alone. Now, without demeaning those who expressed their preferences because you asked, there is a real arrogance in my saying "yes" or "no" based purely on what I like. I mean, who am I, why should you or anyone care about my opinion? A better way is to look at the nature of the detail & construction logic.

      For instance, consider how you can or CANNOT terminate the quarter-round at an opening in the wall. Usually, there is a trim/molding around the door or a cased opening. Now, what happens when that quarter round which protrudes from the vertical face of the 6" or 8" base molding hits the opening's vertical trim? If it's done intentionally as an aesthetic expression, it will be resolved, you will never see an exposed flat section of a quarter round or shoe mold. But more likely than not, since rarely is someone truly obsessed with the trivium of Firmatis (durability), Utilitas (functionality) and Venustatis (aesthetics), most likely "what I like or don't like" which is entirely arbitrary like much of modern art or modern music (nonsense), the quarter round is NEVER resolved at such interruptions (because 3-dimensionally that's very difficult to achieve with such a tiny piece of wood), revealing the folly of the situation. If one's concern is personal aesthetic pleasure, men will check women out between the thigh and the eyes, they wouldn't care about the feet or hair, but most women are concerned about their beauty from head to toe, the totality.

      For another, take a close look at the nail holes on the quarter round, there is simply no good or simple way to anchor through a curved surface. Do you shoot the nail through into the baseboard trim or the flooring, or somewhere in between and hope that it catches? If one doesn't care, that says something, doesn't it? In the not so biopic but tremendously entertaining film Steve Jobs, an engineer countered Jobs' inquiry as to why the wires are so messy, "But nobody will ever see it!" Job's response, "But I do!" and fired the guy on the spot. Jobs was obsessed with design details & their elegance and the result is history. Beauty is organic and has integrity, it's not skin deep like cosmetics, which is mostly about fabricating an image thus vanity, using materials that are harmful to the skin, hair, lips, teeth, eyes.

      If the work, craft, art is done with excellence, as it should be, one may say, "I don't like the way it looks and I wouldn't have done it if it were my kitchen, but boy, is it intelligently designed, expertly executed and magnificent beyond words. But it's not for me." Therein lies the difference between loving truth and beauty, vs thinking of oneself as the arbitrator of truth & beauty. Truth, goodness & beauty exist objectively in our moral universe, regardless of my subjective preferences. They can, and in MNSHO, do apply to molding details.

      In my view, quarter round or no quarter round isn't important, if it's just a matter of personal preference. But what is important is how one arrives at that decision. This was why when I walked into the library at Lafayette College in Easton, PA, I was floored and went through the building photographing every single detail, same at my hotel room at Grand Elysee in Hamburg, Germany. I knew I was beholding intelligent design, experiencing the creation of an incredibly glorious being, like how you feel when you listen to Bach or Tchaikovsky. (Sorry about the long sermon, I trust it finds you happy and content in your beautiful dwelling.)

    • saeriksa
      vor 6 Jahren

      Amen! But all joking aside, you nailed it! The craft-based considerations you bring up are thoughtful and well articulated.

    • justinerowton
      vor 3 Jahren

      Most of what we see is quarter round with the baseboard trim, that is why we think it's a finished look. But in all reality, quarter round is used to cover up imperfections such as uneven floors, gaps, . Personally coming from a construction family, I like it with out… but, it's a personal preference.

    • Shane Fontane
      vor 3 Jahren

      @eastwinddc that was quite the response. thank you for such a thoughtful response.

    • PRO
      Tool Slingers
      vor 3 Jahren

      Unless your floors are uneven do to settling over the years then no an the qtr round at Tool Slingers we always run our base as base and even shoe mold but I definitely have had customers that qtr round is just a have to in some of the old civil war homes we remodel and work. The main thing I have come to find out is if you will cope your joints and 45’ & 22.5 your ends of the qtr round it doesn’t stick out as much next to your base! I wish u the best with your renovations. God Bless

    • ej610
      vor 2 Jahren

      Quarter round's purpose is to cover gaps and flaws, it's not used for architectural detailing. There are better trims for that. When I see quarter round I see flaws being covered up. Only use it when necessary. And I would use cove moulding before I would use quarter round.

    • Lucia Brown
      vor 2 Jahren
      Zuletzt geändert: vor 2 Jahren

      According to your pics, I tend to use the quarter round. These pieces should cover the gap between the surface of the floor and its adjoining walls.

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