DIY Baseboards

8 years ago

Our new production/tract home (Gehan) has awful baseboards. My husband wants to fabricate his own and replace every board in the house. (He's a hobby woodworker and has all the talent/tools he needs, he just wants me to pick the height and router bit.)

The builder installed fancy but puny, 3"-3.5" impossible-to-clean-and-doesn't-go-with-the-architecture-of-the-house dust collectors. My perimeter walls are mostly 8' high, with all interior walls and two front/back exterior walls being 9'-10' tall. I want 6" or 8" high baseboards. Which would y'all recommend? 'Cause I'm leaning toward 8". Go big or go home, right? lol

And for the kitchen island, since it's obviously not full-wall height, would you use a slightly shorter baseboard for scale, or keep the same 6" or 8" used in the rest of the house?

Oh, and please talk me out of dark stained trim (to match the cabinets) in Central Texas where all of the neighborhood houses have painted white... Tell me it would be impossible to sell my dark-trimmed house in a few years, and I should just do white....

Thank you all. <3

Featured Answer

nini804

8 years ago

I’m confused...it is hard to tell from the way you worded it...how high are your ceilings? We have 10’ ceilings, and we did 8” plus a 1.5” cap for a total of 9.5”. They were custom designed. I am also a “go big or go home” gal, lol! And personally, I dislike stained moldings...and literally would not buy a house that had them unless my Dh agreed to letting me have them ripped out or painted prior to moving in. I hate how stained moldings “outline” a room if the walls are light. And basically, I love light, airy, everything so they just don’t work for me. But of course YMMV!

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Comments (10)

One Devoted Dame
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Sorry for the confusion!!!

My ceilings basically start off at 8' tall (all of my curtains/drapes are 90" long when mounted a few inches from the ceiling), but angle up to either 9' (kids' bedrooms) or 10' (master and public living spaces). All fully-interior rooms (laundry, closets, pantry, hallways, kids' bathroom) are 9' or 10'. My foyer is a full 10', no angled ceiling.

lol -- So no stained trim! ;-)
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User
8 years ago
I have 8 foot ceilings and 7 3/8 inch trim. It looks great and no problem with scale. I put 6 inch upstairs and don’t see a difference. My 100 year old rental house with 9 foot ceilings has 12.5 inch base and that looks amazing.
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PRO
Virgil Carter Fine Art
8 years ago
Light trim. Light doesn't have to be white. But light. Big is OK. But not big and dark!

Good luck!
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Mrs. S
8 years ago
On your island, I might consider shoe molding stained or painted to match the island.
mushcreek
8 years ago
Our ceilings are 9' 6", and I made baseboards that total about 9-1/2". To me, they look great. I kept them simple to go with the rest of the house. I made all of the interior trim- 10" baseboards would have been a budget killer!
One Devoted Dame
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Ooooooh, Mr. Mush, those boards look FANTASTIC!!! Wow, I definitely don't want to do 6" anymore!!! I think I'll have my husband pick up a 1x10 (which of course won't actually be a full 10" tall) and see how it looks against the wall.

On your island, I might consider shoe molding stained or painted to match the island.

Sorry, should've clarified here, too... The island only has cabinets on one side; the remaining three sides (and a little wrap-around on the cab side) are sheetrocked and drywalled, so they need baseboards. :-D
lookintomyeyes83
8 years ago
we did a stacked two piece baseboard - 5" flat board, with a 3.5" casing on top. Love the look! Our ceilings are 9' tall.
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User
8 years ago
Panel the island with cabinet doors. A drywall “island” is an oxymoron.
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mushcreek
8 years ago
Mine consist of a 1X8 (3/4 X 7-1/2 actual), a 1/2 X 1-1/2 laid sideways on top of the 1X8, and a 1X2 (3/4 X 1-1/2) on top. The middle and top pieces have a bevel on the edges. I'm too cheap to buy lumber, so I made them out of 3/4" MDF that I ripped to size. I've been told that MDF is easily damaged, but with just two old people living here, they're holding up fine.
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