I'm the OP. Those marble strips are nice but they only come in white. Since our floor is dark they wouldn't work for us. We ended up going with wood. There was no molding of the right shape or height, especially since we were trying to bridge a height transition: the tile being higher. We bought ranch molding that was designed for window and door frames. If you are not familiar with ranch molding, in profile it has a slope: one side is high and the other side is lower. The installers has to shave some wood off the back to make it fit (to reduce the height), but that was their problem since they had promised they would come up with something nice for us and had not. We had them bring the wood right before the weekend and then we stained and varnished it to match our other moldings. On Monday they came back and installed it. The carpeting is a berber, and the edge is tucked lightly under the lowest edge. The high side butts against the tile/durock and a small caulk line is in between.

I'll resurrect an old thread to provide perspective from 12 years later. The house I'm referring to is located in north west Mississippi so it does get moderately humid here - inside is usually 50%-60% RH during the summer. I built our house 12 years ago and used 5 1/4" MDF baseboard identical in profile to what you'd find at lowes/homedepot. I did not have them paint all sides (probably should have). In the wet areas near the shower and tubs, I should have used wood - I'm not sure if painting/priming all sides would have made any difference. When water gets behind or under MDF baseboards, they will eventually blister, bubble, and crumble. The base 'cap' was integrated (very common) on ours and seems to be less tolerant of bumps and bruises than I'd expect wood to be. Our house is high traffic with lots of kids and there is one narrow hallway where several pieces of the "ridge" on the base cap have chipped off. The painters I used were good not great. They used a Sherwin Williams product for the trim which I believe is supposed to be a 'fast coat' and from what I can tell, they did one coat. I repainted all the baseboards in prep for selling with the ProClassic and I can tell the difference - they look much better. The painters also did a terrible job of sanding the nail holes - lots of tiny bumps where the nails are. Had I known/seen it, I would have made them re-do it. That said.. after 12 years, we are relocating and it wasn't hard to touch things up. I wouldn't hesitate to use MDF again, but I learned a few lessons: - Allow MDF to acclimate to the room (they did this on mine) - Prime the back/sides that are not already primed - Glue all outside mitered edges - Proper touch up on filling nail holes - Sand well before painting - Use a high quality finish and take your time doing it - Use wood in areas prone to heavy moisture like bathrooms.

No. Just... No. I did all the finish work on my own stairs, so I researched this piece a lot: how to transition baseboard from a landing to another run of stairs. I'll try to paste a photo from Houzz from my Stairs ideabook that shows what it should look like. The skirt on the stairs should continue up and meet the base on the landing. Here is a different way of trimming the same situation: Personally I prefer the top option, and that's what I did in my own house. It should not look like what you showed - you are correct about that! Good luck with resolution.

I am about 150 miles south and just pulled out all tile and carpet replacing with new tile throughout except 4 bedrooms. i entertained the idea of polished concrete... love the look. But decided on tile and glad I did. Once everything was pulled up, found surprises. Cracks, funky chipped away part in three spots, and at some point some portion had linoleum or something (black glue gunk all over). Plus, if house is built right you should have expansion openings (the are called something fancier). If/when you tear out tile, be sure you have a budget to replace if needed.