apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Maxwell has it right. You need to cover those gaps. I've seen baseboards as small as 3/4" high, but you better hope you have perfectly straight walls because a narrow line like that will show any warps and crookedness.

Lofts and such usually use a small metal reveal in lieu of baseboards. they are plastered to sit flush with the wall and wood floor slides under with caulk etc to allow for expansion. Really nice but but much harder/costlier to install. I agree with just putting a small straight baseboard and paint it the same color.

In addition to providing a finished look, baseboards also provide a way to minimize dirt/dust from accumulating in that void between the floor and wall. There are very simple, clean moldings available -- it doesn't have to be a traditional style.

Max is right. I saw my floor guy lay hardwood floors, before he put the baseboard and all the planks were crooked. Nothing was straight. I put a small baseboard and painted it the color of the wall. It looks nice.

I agree, baseboards with lots of detail don't look very modern, but they are very purposeful. Either try one with very little detail, such as this one: Arthur baseboard at Inviting Home

OR

Make a lighting feature out of it, as has been done with this (also very skimpy on detailing) Belgium baseboard.

you are correct. i am an architect and you only need baseboards because your "floorguy" is not going to take the time to neatly fit each board to the meet the vertical surface; because nothing is 90 degrees. a couple of ways to not have base boards;
do the floors first, then hang drywall over the floor. it is against what most people do... but modern design usually is.

or use a thin metal angle as a baseboard it catches light and makes it another design element in the space.

or make the wood floor go up the wall which is just another way of thinking about a baseboard as an extension of a surface and just just a piece of frosting on a messy cake.

You. Need. Baseboards. With a wood floor, you've gotta have them. I don't have any in some of my carpeted rooms in my modern house, and that's fine, but it's not going to ple with a wood floor.

In my house, the owners put down quarter round shoe molding instead of baseboards where they had to have something. It's less than 1" high and is very minimalist.

My '50 modern apt. has just 1/4" round baseboard in the same wood as the floor and it looks great--very minimal.

Your Paris apartment building can easily be 300 years old, right? My NY apartment building is 80 years old. It's crooked as all get out. Even if you had the most anal-retentive floor-layer out there (and if French handiwork is anything like German handiwork in my experience, you can get some exquisite craftsmanship over there)-- how can the floorlayer account for slope and angle and humidity and the passage of time? Even if it's laid perfectly today, what will it look like in 5 years? Seems a pity to lay floors and then put drywall over ancient plaster walls, which seems to be one suggestion that permits expansion and contraction of the wood floor. A four inch flat baseboard, perhaps plastered, is clean and practical and therefore, to my mind, modern.

BTW, installed correctly,wood floors have a small gap around the room to allow wood to shift a little as it gains and loses moisture throughout the year. So if you flooring guy installs it RIGHT, you'll have a gap. :-) You could install the floor first and put walls on top, but that's courting danger.

Even if you put down floors after wall framing but before sheetrock, unless the wood floor is really thick, you'd have a gap running around the edge that would be filthy and a haven for insects.

And, additionally again, if the ceiling is not PERFECTLY BUILT, the sheetrock won't line up at the bottom.

Baseboards can make a room look larger than it really is. Not a bad thing.

my friend has 4" high thin wood baseboard. looks good.

if you can afford an apartment in paris and new york then you should know enough to trust a professional.

Thanks, all - a very interesting discussion!

First of all, I don't just trust my floor guy, I *love* him (not carnally). He's a great guy, he lives *for* wood, not just off it. Or on it. He's fabricating my fireplace mantel - a thick slab of sandblasted white ash.

But when I asked him why I needed to cover the gap, he didn't have a compelling reason. I've admired modernist/minimalist floors where the walls "float" above the floors - I think that's the effect blackink was talking about above - but the implication for me was that it was about precision of laying of the floor and evenness of the wall finish, rather than any physical problem with having a gap between the floorboards and the wall.

The style I love is the look of decrepitude (but in a Modernist way!) - crumbling finishes, raw wood, cracks, etc. Having a raw wood floor in NYC has been challenging - the flood in those August rains was pretty depressing - but I still love the finish. I was hoping for the Paris place to be even rawer (but in a Modernist way!).

I'll go with a small quarter-round painted the wall colour; I can live with that. But still, in my heart of hearts, I'll be wishing that the floorboards ended rawly...

Thanks for all the advice!

Jonathan

www.jonathanhayes.com

www.preciousblood.info

I live in a rental apartment that was completely renovated right before I moved in. The landlords had refinished the hardwood floors and I am guessing forgot to replace the baseboards before I moved in?

Anyway I have no baseboards and it is clear that there used to be baseboards because there is still a line of demarcation on the wall...

This has left a tiny gap between the wall and the floor - a gap which I never noticed until the first rain of the season.

ANTS! Thousands of ants had free and clear access to my apartment - from every room!

It took months to get rid of them all and block their trails in to my apartment.

Just get yourself some baseboards already!

Haha!

I hear and obey, Mistresstina!

I've reconciled myself to a small "baseboard". I didn't mean quarter-round above, but something with a rectangular cross section as small as I can have it without offending my wood guy.

Robyn is right when she comments that:

In addition to providing a finished look, baseboards also provide a way to minimize dirt/dust from accumulating in that void between the floor and wall.

I lived in a large loft that was still in the same shape as when it had been an industrial space, and the gap between the (very) rough floors and the wall was filled with dust no matter how thoroughly I cleaned.

My coworker has hardword flooring with no baseboards and it looks great. I say if you want it, do it! I too hate baseboards and intend to remove them all when I buy a house. There are alternatives as well like creating a reveal using drywall L trims. As for the dirt and insects, vacuum and keep your place clean. And trims don't get rid of ants or cockroaches, exterminators do.

check out the Reveal Base available here - http://www.fryreglet.com/details-reveals.htm