Our living room floor was replaced at some point. The laminate flooring is clearly lower than the original by 1/8-1/4 inch. Even though the floor is insulated in the crawlspace, there’s a draft. The previous folks had stuffed a line of weatherstripping in between, which looked terrible. We’d like to find a different strategy that is still easy to remove so that if we replace this laminate flooring, we’ll be able to retain our molding. We are nominally handy, but have no equipment. I’ve looked online but don’t know how to assess the suggestions.
What is commonly done is to install a strip of quarter round molding:
It’s a small strip of molding that looks like a 1/4 of a circle. When flooring is redone but the baseboards are not removed, there are often gaps between the flooring and the baseboards. To cover that gap, you can install quarter round molding to cover it up. If you are comfortable with home repair tasks, it’s not really that hard. You might need a miter box and a $200+/- nail gun if you don’t already have one. But it’s relatively easy to install this kind of molding yourself. Actual baseboards can be challenging, but this little strip is not that hard for a beginner to do.
Depending on your baseboard material and finish there are a variety of options beyond quarter-round–1" x 1/4" square stock works well with craftsman-style. Caulk will look janky unless very well done.
Quarter round is a good choice. Or you can use a thicker baseboard that covers the crack.
My 1950’s ranch has 3/4" thick baseboard. It’s only a 1 1/4" tall. The top edge is rounded over. I took a sample to a mill and had some made for a room addition. I wanted the molding to match the rest of the house.
Quarter round is very useful with hardwood floors. It’s nailed to the wall and loosely sits on the hardwood. Allows the hardwood to expand and contract.
I have part of my house that’s very old.
Aint nothing straight or level. So, where the baseboard meets floor was a particular peeve of mine.
I doubt anyone ever saw it, but I did.
I thunk and thunk.
Any stock lumber small enough would not manage the unlevel floors.
Chaulk is not a look I like.
I would have just obsessed over it. Probably for months.
I went to a flea market one day and found a box of old yard sticks. They were all manner of sizes. In less than perfect condition. Lots of writing on them. I liked that.
I bought them. Lightly stained them. Waxed them and glued and nailed what I could, all along the bottom of the wall. I was able to pick and chose and was able to sand or plane some edge to edge to make them lie above the humps in the floor. Appearing to be in a straight line.
It’s not perfect, but it looks intentional.
Moral…small lengths can be done. It just needs the right thing to carry it.
Also known as base shoe, or shoe mold(ing). Often it’s removed and replaced by the folks doing the flooring work, which can lead to a less-than-optimal installation if it projects farther out than door casings or has to navigate difficult areas like stairs. They also often come stained to match the floor, but they should really match the baseboard. Flatter/taller profiles like Tride mentioned are better at dealing with big gaps, and they’re less likely to conflict with casing. The baseboard itself needs to be tall enough for it to look right though.
When we had our new floors put in, we faced the same problem. The solution we went with was to have the molding replaced and put in at the right height- ours was more like 1/2" higher, because the (jackass) previous owners had just put flooring on top of flooring and then put the molding there. So when our guys took all the old stuff out to the subfloor, we had a pretty large gap.
It looks FAR better than trying to camouflage it with quarter-round in the gap (the other solution the flooring guys suggested, and what @filmore is suggesting), even if it was time consuming and more expensive.
Thanks for the ideas. Removing the molding isn’t feasible right now, and the present molding is shsped such that we can’t add another piece at the bottom. We’re looking for a fix that blocks the draft and can be removed when we are in a position to replace the flooring and molding in the future. Ideas?
If you just want to block the draft and don’t mind the visual aspect of the gap, you could tuck some thick yarn or rope in the gap. It comes in many colors and you can tuck it back far enough so that it’s not visible. There is also weatherstripping foam that’s used to fill gaps, but I think it would be too thick for this purpose. I’m not sure it would compress enough to be tucked away and out of sight. But rope and yarn come in many different thicknesses. You should be able to find some that fits in the gap to block the air. You could even get different thicknesses of rope or yarn to account for variations in the gaps in different locations.
Yeah, backer rod would be better. That kind of foam is designed for this purpose. I didn’t initially consider it because I’ve only seen it in larger sizes (like 1/2"). But I see that there small sizes like 1/4" that you can get online.
Weather seal stripping also come in many thicknesses. But I’ll agree that backer rod is probably the best option if it can be found in a small enough diameter for the tight spaces. Or maybe a combo of the two; one format for taller gaps and one for shorter.
Once the gap-filler is in place you could even caulk in front of it & paint to match the baseboards. Or better yet, paint the entire baseboards + caulk. It’s amazing how much a fresh coat of paint on baseboards perks up the whole room. If your eventual next improvement is wholesale replacement of the floors & baseboards, the incremental hassle to remove this new caulk and back-fill material will be negligible.