He doesn’t say what species the wood is, but it’s most likely finger jointed poplar or pine. Since he included time to scribe and fit the baseboard to the floor it looks like you have found someone with experience who wants to do a good job.

@Mark Bischak, Architect Thanks Mark. This is helpful. @BobH I think his price include finger jointed pine which is running around $2-3 / LF... Poplar is 2 to 3 times the material cost not included labor. I completely trust this subcontract from a quality perspective. His guys did a beautiful job on the custom hung doors without trim which were installed prior to drywall. I was mostly wondering about the cost and whether or not it was worth paying the custom carpentry premium for the baseboards. From both of your responses, I think the answer is probably yes.

If you don't want to pay for scribing, then you're pretty much stuck with quarter-round or having gaps.

If great attention is given to the floor installation, scribing may be unnecessary. Especially if the flooring is relatively dark. But the fact that your trim carpenter actually knows what scribing is, is a definite plus. Specify no MDF. I've actually seen it slipped into multi-million dollar homes.

I would love to see pictures of your trimless doors. Sounds very interesting.

@hunt597 This is what the trimless doors looked like during installation. I don’t have a good picture (yet) since the drywall process started. This is a narrow door for one of the guest bedroom closets. Since we were going without trim around the doors, the frames have to be installed and the doors custom hung prior to drywall. The wood they used for the trim was poplar.

"Specify no MDF."

Why would you not want MDF? It paints better than wood.

I agree with Worthy on avoiding MDF. I avoid the use of MDF in applications where it would be subject to mechanical damage and in wet areas. Baseboards fall in that category as does door casing, chair rail, etc.

@Charles Ross Homes From my research on the topic here on Houzz and elsewhere, your short conclusion seems to be consistent with everything I’m seeing. Additionally, in our situation where we have tile floors throughout and a home in Florida where there may be situations where some water is an issue during cleaning and/or due to the weather, MDF seems like a poor choice for baseboards.