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Shoe Moulding Opinions Please

11 years ago

I am in the process of redoing my kitchen. We have installed wood floors and painted white cabinets. Our floor is uneven on one end of the kitchen so the contractor says he needs to add shoe moulding to the kick plates under the cabinets to hide the gaps. I would love some opinions on if the moulding should be oak to match the floors or white to match the cabinets. The flooring guys put in oak shoe moulding while I was at work and I am not crazy about them. As an aside, the other rooms in our house have wood floors and the shoe moulding in these rooms is oak to match the floors (as opposed to being painted white to match the baseboards). Thanks! Any pics people have would be appreciated too!

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Comments (10)

badgergal
11 years ago
I think it would look better painted.That is how we did it in a previous residence. According to one source "Shoe moulding is traditionally part of the baseboard. Baseboard used to be made up in pieces and shoe moulding was one of the pieces. If you stain it, then you are bringing the floor up onto the baseboard."
angie_diy
11 years ago
I vote white to match the cabs.
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Thank you all for you input. It sounds like this is MOSTLY a personal preference, but here is my follow up question. My GC is advocating the shoe moulding for the following reason. Our site finished hardwood floors were installed and then the base boards installed over them. Right now, the base boards look wonderful with no gaps between the base board and floor. However, our GC says that in the future, when we sand down and refinished the floors, there will be a gap which will become more pronounced each time the floor is refinished. The advantage to having the shoe moulding is it can be removed, the floors sanded and refinished and then the shoe moulding is put back on, but set a little lower. I suppose the shoe moulding could be added at a later date if the floors are refinished, but for those of you who have site finished hardwoods and no shoe moulding, how do you plan to handle this? TIA again for your input! Jaymie
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In the 2 homes that we have owned, we have done it both ways. In our first home we had the oak strip flooring refinished and we painted the quarter round to match with the trim. In short order they were scuffed and chipped badly. In our second home we refinished the old oak strip flooring in the downstairs and they automatically stained the quarter round. I had never seen this before, but 30 years later, the quarter round is as good as the day they stained it. I love it. It does not appear odd at all. In fact it just blends in with the floor. We chose this staining again when we did the upstairs a few years ago. Upstairs we have some oak and some maple and both floors/quarter rounds look amazing, clean and unobtrusive.
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Joseph, I think you are preaching to the choir on a forum like this, so chill and give posters credit for knowing what they are dealing with. This is a 750SF house, built to house base support during the interwar period. It is as basic as basic gets, but hardwood flooring was par for the course in that era, even though a luxury to us. There is just no way to cosmetically salvage the floor. It has served faithfully for ninety years, but is just worn out. I appreciate everyone's advice on the shoe mold. I'm clearly overthinking it, but I was just so down in the dumps because of all that haaaaard work scrubbing and laying poly gone to waste. I was so proud of the job I had done. But we knew it was a gamble when we did it, because of the condition of the floor. We have found an unbelievable clearance deal on Trafficmaster laminate at the local big box, so we can at least keep the look of what was there.
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breezygirl
11 years ago
It does look to me like the floor is on the cabs like that. I've also painted mine in the past to match the molding/cabs. It makes the shoe molding less noticeable and creates a cleaner line.
blackchamois
11 years ago
I agree with all the above. I think the white looks better and carries the white of the cabs down to the floor. Breezy is right, it looks like the floors are creeping up onto the cabinets.
maryl1
11 years ago
I agree with Breezy. It will just blend in with the toe kick area. We had the white in my old kitchen before the renovation. It doesn't have to be the same as your other rooms.
wi-sailorgirl
11 years ago
Definitely painted to match the cabinets. I consider shoe molding to be part of the baseboards (even if it is around a toe kick) rather than part of the floor and therefore I think it should match the baseboards. I've seen it done differently and it always reads like a stripe around the room to me.
eieio-5
11 years ago
I would do white.
roof35
11 years ago
I vote to match the cabinets. In my case, I couldn't have matched the floor if I wanted to. So I installed stained shoe to match the cabinets, and the rest of the shoe is painted to match the baseboard.

I think it's pleasing to the eye.
roof35
11 years ago
Another shot where it took a little time deciding how I'd go about it.
chickpea8
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks so much everyone, I really appreciate your input. I believe white it is. ;-)

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