Pretty cabs! Looks great!

My toe kicks are very plain. I did not want quarter round fussing up my clean lines. My cab maker scribed the toe kick board to the floor, I believe.

The area is not sealed in any way. After 15 months, I have no issues of which I am aware.

Below is a picture of one section of toe kick in my kitchen. I too did not want quarter round in my kitchen. Just as breezy stated the area was not sealed in any way. Wait and see if there are any gaps between the toe kick and floor. If there are you may have to cover them with quarter round.

This post was edited by badgergal on Tue, Feb 12, 13 at 8:09

As long as it comes down onto the finished floor then there is no need for shoe molding.

Travis Alfrey
Pinehurst, NC

I've never heard of putting quarter round on the toe kick. Or sealing it either.

What are y'alls opinions/experiences with toe kick drawers? They seem to be a good use of usually wasted space and a good storage place for cookie sheets or cutting boards.

If you can afford them. :-)

I really love the idea as I hate all that wasted space and they'd be extremely valuable in a very small kitchen. But with all the hardware, they are $$$ a piece, not sure if they are worth it in mid-size or larger kitchens as they cannot hold much.

I am considering going with contemporary style soffits instead of the last tier of cabinets for the same reason. I think I need to get rid of stuff instead of building more storage. :-)

We did use quarter round:

I have seen a few kitchens in magazines where quarter round was installed in addition to the toe kick and sometimes even when there was a decorative valance and I thought it was overkill. I personally would opt out unless as others say you have gaps.

Your kitchen looks really nice. Looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Thank you so much everyone for your input! I am so glad to hear that quarter round is not necessary as far as finishing aspect is concerned.

We do plan to scribe the toe-kick board to the floor. Hopefully, that means we will have very minute gaps if any. (We are not the best scribers and we are installing the cabinets ourselves - long story...)

Breezygirl, your kitchen is one of our inspiration kitchens!
Badgergal, what a cool curved cabinet! They can do that?
Suzannesl, thanks for the photo of the quarter round with your shaker cab.

Thanks, cribbs, catbuilder,eleena, p.ball2, for your feedback!

Tallytomatoe, we did get a toe-kick drawer but we don't know yet how useful it is. I was going to store oversized platter in it but after seeing the carvernous interior of the over the fridge cab, I think we didn't need the toe-kick drawer.

Do you know if we need to use clear caulk to seal the gap between toe-kick and floor just to keep water or soup getting under the cabinets?

Thanks!

Well, caulking will depend on how often you have floor soup parties and what kind of soup is made and consumed on the floor. I'm not sure I'd want roasted tomato bisque against my white toe kicks, but broth-based soups like chicken veggie would be more apt to run under the toe kick. ;)

LOL! Breezygirl, that is simply hilarious!

What a great idea, floor soup party!

Yup, I am just wondering if anyone use caulk at all to keep the aforementioned bisque and soups from running into areas where they can't be consumed (I mean, cleaned off...)

hmmm... we have trim (not quarter round) around the toe kicks. Our floor was not very even as our house is older so in some places they use (mind blank!) those little pieces of wood underneath to make all the cabs level-- SHIMS! lol. I'd think in our case the trim was necessary to cover any inconsistencies in where the floor meets the cab?

:) We didn't caulk. I had to do something to inject some fun into GW for me now. I HATE the new format and and so do my eyes. I was barely on yesterday and probably won't be today as I just can't stand the new appearance. I wanted to lighten my mood.

Nice cabinets!
May I ask the brand?
Thanks!

A few more in the thread below.

BTW, we have shoe molding on our toe-kicks now and I kind of hate the look in my kitchen. For some reason it looks great in other people's kitchens, but I don't care for it in mine. I'm hoping we can skip it when we replace the cabinets, but we may not have a choice as the tile was installed around the cabinetry and therefore it may cover up where the tile meets the cabinets. If I had an option though, I'd skip it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Base molding/toe kicks

kitch4me, the cabinets are Inner Most from Home Depot. It is frameless cabs. We love it! The rep has been super responsive in replacing doors and drawer fronts that had minor cosmetic issues. They really stand by their product! We are very happy with the cabinets and the service we received from both HD and Elkay.

wi-sailorgirl, thanks for your info and for the link to your thread! Yeah, I prefer the plain toe-kick myself. So, I am relieved to hear that quarter round and/or shoe moulding is optional although useful to hide gaps. I was confused when the KD said quarter round is necessary to make a kitchen look "finished" as my inspiration photos don't seem to have them. This is our first, and maybe the only, kitchen remodel. So we are a bit - a lot - naive. Thanks to GW, we have a community to bounce ideas and find out info from.

We have places where we have more than a 1/4" gap where they leveled the cabinets...and we have water damage to the floors (from a PO's flood, I guess) so the more we can cover, the better. That said, I'm not thrilled in reality to have the shoe molding, because I hate getting on my hands and knees to wipe it down. Honestly, I found in my last kitchen (where it was totally unnecessary since we had level concrete floors) that the quarter round/shoe mold was constantly *filthy*. It was "soft white" painted and it looked horrible. ::shudder::

If I could skip it, I would.

My flush toe kick cabinets in this kitchen have a decorative baseboard finish. I like that, but decided to have traditional recessed toe kicks in the working areas of the kitchen.

Does anyone know the name for the "toekick" part of the cabinets if there's no indentation? My cabinets go straight to the ground, flush from top to bottom. I'm taking measurements and (very!) slowly drawing up a floor plan to post for advice and I'm not sure what to call the measurement from the floor to the bottom of the door on the lower cabinets.

breezygirl: But I never have floor soup parties with chicken broth-based soups; it's ONLY the tomato-based soups and sauces that land on the floor!

I don't think it is necessary, nor caulking, which would be a pain if you ever redid the floors. But if I were going to put something it would be more like the picture above.

Mine are black so you can't see anything there to begin with.

Artichokey - it's called "flush toe kick" or "furniture finish" in many cabinet lines that I've investigated.

Are you trying to keep that style or change it out to the recessed toe kick area?

grlwprls: Thanks! I'm keeping the style. I have a small galley-style kitchen with a nook at the end; one side is (I'm pretty sure) the original 1930 cabinets; the other side is a mess, with the refrigerator crammed into a corner so it can't open all the way and the range next to a doorway with no landing space - and I'd love to add a dishwasher. (The nook is currently storing trash and recycling bins.) My intention is to leave the side with the original cabinetry alone and see what the creative minds of GW suggest for the nook and what's currently the appliance side.

I don't care for the look of quarter round. Before I got my hardwood, I had Pergo in the kitchen and dining room and it was finished with quarter round, so I'm afraid it now has a Pergo association for me. When the hardwood went in, they added a toe-kick and finished it as they did the floor (my cabs are golden oak underneath the paint). When the painters did the boxes, we failed to communicate about whether to leave the toe kick alone or paint it. They painted it and I'm glad they did. It looks like part of the cabs, rather than part of the floor.

Thanks everyone for sharing your information!

2LittleFishies: I love the look of the flat trim along your toe-kick board! If we end up with a gap between the toe-kick board and the floor (due to our scribing error - which is a possibility,) we will use flat trim to hide the gap instead of a shoe mould or a quarter round. Thanks for the photo and the idea!

lovetogarden- : ) Thanks & I'm glad if I helped you!

If you have an out of level situation where you need to shim, then using regular toekick can leave a gap. The solution to that is to order a skin and cut a custom sized toekick (even "wedge" shaped if needed).

I dislike quarter round. An alternative is scribe molding. It's less obtrusive and will cover the minor irregularities if you would prefer to not cut your own toekick.

greendesigns, thank you for the tips! Now I have two alternatives to quarter rounds if I ever need to close the gap between toe-kick board and floor. Fantastic!

I'd skip quarter round too.
Your cabinets are BEAUTIFUL!! Can you please tell me the color and how tall are your ceilings and upper cabs? Are the glass front sections the top of your upper or a seperate cabinet?
Is Home Depot doing your install too?
have you chosen your countertop and backsplash yet? Do tell!
I can't wait to see your finished kitchen.

Oh and Breezy.... Floor soup? Hysterical. I'd still skip the quarter round and slurp my under cabinet floor soup thru a straw if necessary. :>)
I wonder how much diet coke and champagne has snuck (is that a word?) under mine. Guess I'll find out when I start my remodel!

Island, thank you for your enthusiastic compliments!

The cabinet color is Divinity Classic. My ceiling is 99" and the upper cabs are 42" tall with 2" moulding at the top (haven't installed that yet).

The glass front sections are top of the upper cabs and not a separate cabinet. We are doing our own install because we have no idea that installation was to be left to the pros. Did I say we were naive? We watched youtube videos and bought ourselves a laser leveller. It was a long process, and mistakes were made especially in the scribing department. Now, we are at the end stretches of the cabinet installation process. Thus, the question on the toe-kick and quarter round.

We haven't chosen our countertop yet. As for backsplash, we are planning to do 3x6 subway tiles in white.

I can't wait to see our finished kitchen, either :)

Thanks for the details. Looks great please keep us posted on progress.

lovetogarden_oak - our cabs are also InnerMost, Actually, I think that they're the same as yours except that yours are painted and ours are stained. One thing I have found with them is that they collect dust on the doors, which will show more on your white. On the other hand, I never notice dust on the quarter round. Probably because the dust mop just runs over it and cleans it off. The doors and drawers, I actually take a dust cloth to every now and then.

Lovetogarden can you please tell me the door and drawer style? I can't identify it from the website pictures. Thanks.

Lovetogarden- the cabinets are lovely!
Would you mind sharing your cabinet heights? I'm considering stacking some 12" on top of my 30s since I soooo regret not having taken them all the way up...your measurements looked maybe close to that? What is your ceiling height?
TIA!
Jalsy

Jalsy6 She already posted that a few responses above:

"The cabinet color is Divinity Classic. My ceiling is 99" and the upper cabs are 42" tall with 2" moulding at the top (haven't installed that yet).

The glass front sections are top of the upper cabs and not a separate cabinet. "

Jalsy6 She already posted that a few responses above:

"The cabinet color is Divinity Classic. My ceiling is 99" and the upper cabs are 42" tall with 2" moulding at the top (haven't installed that yet).

The glass front sections are top of the upper cabs and not a separate cabinet. "

island - my cabinet door and drawer style is "LaPorte". Thanks for answering Jalsy6 question for me :)

What about a situation where the flooring goes in after the cabs, such as with cork (which we're getting). How does one handle the end run of cabs without some small moulding to cover the edge of the floor next to the side of the cab?

What did you end up doing? Were you able to fit or cut the toekicks to size?