ᐅ Flush Baseboards – Where to Use, How to Install, Costs, and Experiences

Hello everyone,

My partner and I are about to build a new single-family house and we're currently stuck on the topic of baseboards. Of course, flush-mounted baseboards would look much better everywhere, but in the end, it’s also a matter of cost. Does anyone have experience with this? In which rooms did you choose which type of baseboards? How expensive was it? As homeowners, do we need to consider or organize more ourselves, or do the trades usually handle it?

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

I cannot comment on the costs. What type of construction method is planned? With solid construction, airtightness is often an issue because the plaster serves as the airtight layer.

It's a matter of organization. Should the plaster be applied after the baseboards are installed?

Plastering after the baseboards... that would also mean installing the floor beforehand, so the screed would have to be done before the plastering, except in the case of tiles.
For other types of flooring, it gets complicated and especially... expensive, expensive, expensive...

Before considering such requests, your budget for the rest of the work should be finalized and still have enough reserves...

Screed applied before plastering is completely wrong because it does not create airtightness. The same reasoning also applies to plastering after baseboards.

I just looked this up... you would have thought that in times of AI and so on, one could do this oneself... well.

In practice, a profile is installed on the walls before plastering, which the plasterer then embeds. The screed installer places the edge insulation strip against this profile and pours the screed. After that, the flooring is installed, up to the edge insulation strip. It is then trimmed, allowing the baseboards to be installed flush with the plaster.

What makes this extremely complex and expensive in the end:

- You need to know during planning which baseboards you will use, and consequently the matching flooring type (parquet, tile, laminate, vinyl, all with different thicknesses)... because of floor build-up height, baseboard height, available colors, etc.
- You need a plasterer who can deliver a perfectly even finish... standard Q2 level will not be sufficient for this
- You also absolutely need flush-mounted doors... how could it look when a flush baseboard ends at a regular door frame?

A typical door from a carpenter costs around 500 EUR including everything. One meter of baseboard, maybe around 10 EUR plus materials?
For flush installation, you should expect roughly three times that cost... Do you have 20,000 to 30,000 EUR just for flush baseboards and doors?