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Show me your island toe kick baseboard meetup

12 years ago

Hi all -

I am in the final stages of my kitchen model (wahoo!). I have a little tricky thing I haven't figured out how to deal with and would very much appreciate any pictures anyone cares to share.

My island has a toe kick only on the working side. There is seating on two sides, so no toe kick there, and the fourth (short) side has a 42" cabinet with no toekick.

My plan is to do a baseboard and shoe molding (like quarter round) on the three non-toe kick sides, but I'm not sure how to handle the one corner where the toe kick meets the base board.

Seem to me that should be pretty common set up, and wondering if anyone can send me pictures of what they did at that spot.

Here's my kitchen. The trouble spot is by the leg at right, I want baseboard on the side facing the camera, and need to handle the transition to the toe kick. You can see the far side doesn't have the same issue because of the way the cabinet facing the dining room is flush to the cabinet.

Here's a picture from www.atthepicketfence.com that shows how they handled a similar situation. It's hard to see but looks like maybe they put a little leg in front of the flat baseboard? I wish I had a picture from the front,and I wonder how they clean in that tight space between the leg and the baseboard and the toe kick.

So please send pictures, any help would be much appreciated!

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Comments (5)

suzanne_sl
12 years ago
We put a shoe molding around all the bottom edges of our toes kicks. At the corner in question:

Other toe kick surfaces:

There's nothing like crawling around on the floor taking photos to highlight all the little things that could use a touch-up!
MDBmom
12 years ago
Hi! Your kitchen looks great! Here are two pics of my transition. HTH! Good luck (and excuse the dirt and smooched raspberry on the close up:o) Guess I should be cleaning rather than checking garden web!).
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Here are our cabinets and island furniture-style toe-kick area: I will admit, when the cabinets first went in, I was shocked...I wrote about it here, because I hadn't realized this was the style our cabinet guy had gone with until the cork floor was being installed, and I realized there wasn't a "notched-in" area. Our contractor told us this is what the cabinet builders had said. So---now that we've lived in this kitchen since November, I really don't notice the lack of space for a toe-kick recessed area at all. It's worked out fine. HTH!
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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 :)
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It would be easy to build. I bought mine for the island, but it was just 3/4" plywood strips. I did make another one to go under a tall pantry. For the island, I attached 2x4 wood blocks flat to the floor first to set the position. Then I placed and leveled the base with shims, and screwed into the floor blocks to attach. Similar to your issue, the base was sized to be flush with the cabinets on the ends, and recessed 3" on the long side. After installing the cabinets, I put an 1/8" painted skin on the exposed portions of the base to serve as a finished baseboard.
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catbuilder
12 years ago
I just brought the baseboard around the edge. Your baseboard needs to be the same (slightly smaller) height as the toekick for this to work. You can also add shoe molding.

{{gwi:1584060}}
User
12 years ago
Just build out the toekick and to the baseboard all the way around. It's a better, more uniform furniture style look. The only place in the kitchen where you stand close enough to the counter that your feet actually occupy toekick is at the sink area. Even prepping, 95% of people will not have their feet in the toekick area. Eliminating it is not a big deal at all.
kitchen2011
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks everyone - so helpful. I will have to think about whether to do a "flat" look like MDBMom or a return into the toe kick like catbuilder or suzannes1 suggested.

Hollysprings - I just stood at my counter and while my toes aren't under the toe kick, they are in the about 1" space that the baseboard/shoe combination would take up in front of the cabinet, and since this is a primary workspace I think I need to keep the toe kick.

Thanks again for all the pictures, really helped me visualize the options.

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