Good question. Since the 60's, I haven't seen anything but white. I'm sure some high ticket manufacturer makes them for retro installations, but I wouldn't even know where to start.

I just realized that I am always ten steps ahead. I guess that it good because when I actually get to the project I have all my ducks in a row. I am currently laying the tile on my hearth and surround. But that leads to redoing the floors because we ripped up the existing hearth which disrupted existing floor, but we never liked it anyway so out it goes! I have done laminate before so I have that down. I did not have to do tile in prior house so this is new. This is probably the only DIY that we have not done before, literally we have done everything one can do to a house except build it by from the ground up. Maybe that will be the next house??? Nooooooo! What color caulk would you suggest. The baseboards are white and so is quarterround. The tile is slate with grout that will be dark charcoalish. I am thinking the white but wonder if if dark would keep the white line of the base of the quarterround looking straight. If I do white it may give the illusion that the molding is wavy. Or am I doing the caulk under the trim farther back where it will not show?? I am assuming that I put it on the edge and it will show???

I think many here are being a little hard on the crew that did this work. Whoever did the work is definately lacking some experience in woodworking and capet for not finishing the transition, but i see nothing wrong with the tile work itself. Obviously they arent carpet mechanics, or they would have finished the carpet transition, so let's get that one out of the way first. Secondly, many of the pictures show incomplete and improperly completed cabinetry and areas where they cant possibly nail or anchor the wood trim to. Let's face it, ANY wood trim looks crappy on a tile job but it was required here. Let's ask why it was required here. Because the door sills and the base were higher than the finish floor height ??? ok so why didnt they remove and reinstall the basebaords ? possibly because it may break when being removed or some pieces may have been already cracked, PLUS it would have lowered the height of the base. What does this mean? It means that potentially the walls needed preparation, painting, and possible the walls painted to to get an exact match ... which any experienced floor mechanic will tell you is no easy or quick task ... so they used trim. I guess alot of this depends on what was discussed between the company and the owner/poster. Back-cutting for open-ends in shoe-molding and 1/4-round molding is standard, however it is unusual to do a complete 45 degree cut, only a partial with a sheared end (pictured): example: The problems I see at your inside corners where the trim is riding above the tile could possibly be from grout, thinset, or tile holdiung it up, but I would guess it is from an improperly cut inside corner on the moulding piece. The isntaller probably did 2' 45 degree angles which would work if the existing bas eand the floors were perfectly perpendicular and parallel ... they never are ...so the right way to do it is to cus the one piece square to the inside corner and to cove the meeting piece to the profile of the trim. This facillitates the cove pivoting on the radius of the trim piece making any out od squareness irelevent, giving the appearance of a perfect fit almost every time (pictured): example: Placing trim accross transitional areas or doorways is unusual, but it really depends what was there to begin with. If the existing doorway sill height went above that of the top edge of the tile, then they probably did not want to leave an opens gap. I can not tell by the pictures if the tile is an issue or of varying heights. It seems that your only issues here are aesthetics caused by basebaords that were too high to begin with, and incomplete or improperly completed cabinetry work, possibly because this area had carpeting in previously ? While I agree the carpentry craftsmanship is not exemplary, to be fair, they did not have alot to work with here because some of the pictures you have shown, show areas the could not do much about to begin with, like the metal dishwasher base (cant nail to metal and there might not have been too much width to chamfer out the trim for it, and the corner undr your cabinet doesnt even have a base block to nail to, which is either a opening for hvac or air moement, or it is an area never completed with wood base to begin with (whoever did your cabinets to begin with didnt finish it?). The only way this could have been done to ease every concern you have shown, if the existing base was gapped, would have been to remove all the basebaords, scribed them back to the tile or replaced them entirely if they break during removal (no guarantees on that one - sometimes they break and sometimes they dont and sometimes htey are already installed cracked but repaired and you cant see it til you try to remove them), then this would have made the wood base height LESS and tould have required at a minimum touchup paint, and in the worst of cases, respacling, repainting, and even then it might not have matched the walls, so the pickiest of people would have wanted to paint their entire walls to match exactly. It begins and ends with the basebaords height. If you dont like the look of the trim, then the base needs removed and reinstalled or replaced to cover the gap, which would create a need to repaint or repair the wall above where the base was originally set. I agree the carpetntry work on the wood trim was bad. The tile looks good.

Update: I picked Bruce Ameican Home Walnut laminate and went w/ painted white shoe molding, not quarter-round. I thought about removing the baseboards. But this laminate can be removed and re-installed to replace any damage, and if it was run underneath the baseboard, I figured that would be trouble. I had a dilemma deciding what to do in front of the front door (painted or stained) and went w/ the painted there, too. It looks strange to me because you can see the black from the weatherstripping on the bottom of the door between the white door and the white molding, but I'm hoping that soon I won't even notice. I'm still looking for rugs, so if I get a thicker rug there, hopefully it will distract my eye.