What is in the rest of the house?

You don't need shoe molding over tile.

The upper floor is builders grade colonial I think. Small baseboards (3" I think) and 2 inch casing around windows and doors. We're renovating one floor at a time.

Here's what we have for upstairs:

I always vote for beefier moldings if the room size can take it. Doing as your builder suggests will make your house look more like a colonial.

Ask him why the shoe? Possibly he has worked on houses in your development before and knows something about they way they were put together? There might be problems he's anticipating that would be at least mitigated in appearance by shoe molding? (I don't actually get the hate for it. My 1940's Cape Cod has it everywhere. I find it part of the charm of the original woodwork.)

I did ask about the shoe mold. He's worried that the floor may not be perfectly flat after it's tiled so we'll have gaps between the baseboards and flooring.

We're trying to nail down an overall price for the renovation and trim choice could impact that.

Perhaps we push back and wait until the flooring is in before deciding on trim. Maybe the floor will be flat enough that we don't need the shoe mold.

The floor is never perfectly flat but when you doing the tile you can run the tile flat.

Hi, Scott,

Here's a link to a great resource for various trim styles:

https://windsorone.com/products/moldings/

Best wishes for a successful project.

Selecting the trim before starting really does help through the rest of renovation. Having a shoe isn't nessecary, but then I would go with his suggestion of a thicker molding; the purpose of the molding is to hide the gap that needs to be left on floors or drywall to allow for expansion. Using a shoe helps to hide it when the molding is skinnier.