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Remodeling Flooring Design Dilemma

Change baseboards between hallway and bedrooms?

2 years ago

We're refinishing our first-story flooring and installing new baseboards. We have to decide whether to put the same baseboards in the upstairs hall. Here are the details:

1. Downstairs rooms and the upstairs hallway have 2 1/2" MDF baseboards that are disintegrating. We will replace the downstairs baseboards with 3 1/4" clamshell base, in poplar.

2. Upstairs bedrooms have the the original 1 7/8" sanitary molding. We will probably replace with 2 1/2" clamshell in finger-jointed pine, from a big box store, but that project is a couple years off.

We'd like to go ahead and replace the upstairs hall base now, with the same 3 1/4" clamshell we are using downstairs. The hallway has more traffic, so using the durable poplar seems like a good idea. And the stairwell makes the hall somewhat visible from the downstairs. Is it too weird to have the baseboard size change between the hall and the adjoining bedrooms?

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Comments (3)

kandrewspa
2 years ago
We are also gradually replacing the baseboards in our house so we have two sizes going. I don't know if I will ever replace what's in the two less-used bedrooms because there is carpet in those rooms. I think it's easier to pull off these differences if the profile is the same, but in reality, I don't know if anyone would notice if they are different. It sounds like you will eventually get around to making them all the same, so don't worry about it if they're different for a while.
mcarroll16 thanked kandrewspa
mcarroll16
Original Author
2 years ago
Thanks, kandrewspa. I don't think I wrote it very clearly. They will never be all the same. The downstairs baseboard will be 3 1/4" high. The eventual bedroom baseboard will be 2 1/2" high. So is it ok to put 3 1/2" high base in the hall that's adjacent to the bedrooms? They will be the same profile, once everything is changed.
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I would find a home energy auditor in your area that can measure the cfm of your supply and return vents. You also need thermal imaging pictures of the whole house inside and out especially of the rooms in question. In my opinion this is the easiest and cheapest way to find the problems not only in the two rooms but throughout the home. Some utilities will refund part of this. If you have a window leaking air around the trim, it will show. If you have air coming in under your baseboard trim it will show. If the insulation is better in some stud bays and crummy in others it will show. After looking at all the information gathered then I have no doubt you can find the solution on the first shot.
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You can purchase uneven T-mouldings for the areas where the floors are not a matching height. That is normally the way it is done. As for direction of laminate, you have a close match to what already exists but it isn't a match. Changing directions is about the only way this will look OK. A diagonal install would look REALLY good, but it will require 15% - 20% waste which you may not have enough on hand.
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kempek01
2 years ago
Either way is fine.
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mcarroll16 thanked kempek01

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