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is it ok to use mdf baseboard for bathroom?

last year

which baseboard is good for bathroom?

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Comments (9)

ci_lantro
last year
MDF is a poor choice for a bathroom. Solid wood, not fingerjointed, is better. PVC best, especially if kids or pets are going to be bathed in the room.
kudzu9
last year
I have MDF throughout my house. The only place it's been damaged is right next to the bathtub where guests haven't been careful to keep the shower curtain in place. I agree with ci_lantro about going with wood, but have no objections to finger-jointed as the glue is waterproof and it's usually cheaper and sometimes straighter than solid wood.
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need input on bathroom plans
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Comments (4)
1) While I've seen lots of people use white ceramic subways on the walls and marble on the floors, I haven't been able to find the reverse (carrara on the walls and black/white ceramic on the floors) as we'd be doing. Do you think it would look OK? Sounds nice to me... 2) Since we'll only be tiling the sink niche, rather than all the walls, I'm not sure how to handle the baseboard issue. There is a 6" coordinating marble skirting we could use in the niche, but the wood baseboards throughout the house are 10" deep. Should we just put the field tiles on top of a wood baseboard and skip the skirting? Or should we nix the baseboard and carry the skirting onto the non-tiled walls? Any other ideas? I think you could go either way, but as this is a powder room and not a "wet" bathroom, I think the wood baseboard would look nice all around. I tend to think that a tile base often looks like one didn't want to spend the $$ to tile the whole room (the areas on the untiled walls), IMHO. 3) Another issue with the sink niche is that the two parallel walls aren't equal lengths, and I can't figure out if we should tile them as is, or if we should bring the tile on the longer wall just equal with the shorter wall. Well, again, I don't think any of the above are wrong. I think I would go with the symmetry of the tile being equal on both sides due to the configuration of the room. fern4 mentions the finish edge... you would need a trim piece or bullnose, I think, but you probably have that worked out already ;-) Nice choices!
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MDF or Pine Baseboards?--Painted White
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Comments (31)
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.
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Transition from MDF baseboard to tile - correct way?
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Comments (9)
Previously it was wood and tile. I don't like the gap in between the two. The tile looks more finished and cleaning in the corners is easier. I am trying to resolve the transition between the two bases... So the transition piece between the old tile and same wood floor was a reducer, but it was a trip hazard. I want a T-molding here. That is what there is between the other bathroom and bedroom floor (tile to wood) and the laundry closet (vinyl to wood) also has a T molding so it would all match.
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New MDF throughout house. What to use in bathrooms and how to match?
Q
Comments (9)
We had terrible experiences with MDF baseboards in our kitchen and bathroom, though a PO installed it so no idea how high quality it was. It was painted in high quality paint (BM oil-based Satin Impervo) but still got swollen when it got a little wet in passing (as it often did in both rooms). By the time we replaced it in the kitchen, there were areas where chunks of it had disintegrated, and we still have that issue in the bathroom--hope to redo that room someday soon. I'll never use it again as a result of that experience, though I imagine newer MDF may well be more moisture resistant. Most baseboard profiles we looked at for a recent bathroom project came in both wood and MDF, though, so we chose the wood. I like the idea of a tile baseboard if the floor is tiled, too. (FWIW, we opted not to use the same size baseboard in our bathroom anyway--most of the house has 7" baseboards which looked overwhelming in the bathroom, so we did 4.5" instead since they aligned with the height of the shower tile. I don't think anyone notices!)
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rwiegand
last year
I wouldn't use it anywhere there is any chance it will get wet, ever. Poplar isn't significantly more expensive, paints beautifully, and will stand up to occasional water. If things are really likely to get wet regularly consider cPVC (aka Azek), We had a house with finger jointed pine; with humidity changes over the years the joints telegraphed and were visible under the paint. Not good.
A H
Original Author
last year
Thank you all for your feedback
PRO
Perfect Edge Finishcrafters
last year
I have seen MDF trim right next to tubs that is ruined, and I've seen it look new years after install. Not the best choice, but it can be really water resistant AS LONG AS its painted with a quality trim paint on all 6 sides, no open nail holes.
rwiegand
last year
Why go to all that trouble when another material (eg poplar) works as well without the downsides for a trivial difference in price? Yes, I understand if you are Toll Brothers and buying a million feet of trim the price difference adds up, but for 20-30 ft to do a bathroom it's just not a big deal.

Agree that tile is a superior solution!
ci_lantro
last year
but have no objections to finger-jointed as the glue is waterproof and it's usually cheaper and sometimes straighter than solid wood.

My objection to finger jointed trim is that the finger joint can telegraph thru the paint. Dis-similar pieces of wood that react differently to changes in humidity. Which is more likely to happen in a bathroom. Not anything to do with the integrity of the glue.
kudzu9
last year
ci_lantro-

To my knowledge, better quality finger-jointed wood molding is constructed with glue that is also anti-creep. Not saying it couldn't happen; just haven't seen it myself.
ci_lantro
last year
last modified: last year
Poor word choice on my part. What I meant was the actual wood fingers on one side of the joint reacting to humidity changes differently than the fingers on the other side of the joint. I know what you mean by glue creep...Had that happen on the first refinishing/ repair project that I did decades ago.

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