Galaxy Pistachio Green Quarter Round Molding Cabinets

GPG QRM, the quarter round molding in this finish, is $62.40. It is a small convex profile, a quarter of a circle in section, that sits in a right-angled joint and covers the gap between two surfaces. At the foot of a cabinet it covers the uneven line between a finished panel and a floor that is never perfectly flat.

Trim that joins two surfaces always looks like part of one of them. Painted to match the cabinet, the quarter round reads as the bottom edge of the cabinet. Painted to match the baseboard, it reads as the room’s trim carrying on around the cabinet. Stained or finished like the floor, it reads as part of the floor. None of these is wrong. What looks wrong is a kitchen where the answer changes from one corner to the next.

The green matters here more than on most trim pages, because it is the one finish of the three most likely to differ from the others. Choose by what you want the eye to follow.

In most green kitchens we recommend matching the cabinet at islands and peninsulas, where the cabinetry stands alone, and matching the cabinet at wall runs too unless the baseboard is a strong feature of the house. The one mistake worth avoiding is white quarter round at the foot of a green panel with no white baseboard anywhere nearby: it draws a bright line exactly where the eye should slide past. Our matching guide covers how cabinet, floor and trim colours are usually balanced.

This decision is made standing up, looking down, so test it that way. Put a door sample on the floor against the wall, lay an offcut of the baseboard beside it and a piece of the flooring in front, and look from standing height in daylight and again at night. Then imagine the thin strip of trim in each of the three colours running along the foot of the sample.

Most people find the answer obvious once the three finishes are side by side at the right height. If the baseboard is tall, profiled and a feature of the house, carrying it around the cabinets feels right. If the baseboard is a plain modern strip, matching the cabinet usually wins. If the floor is a warm wood that ties to a wood counter or shelf elsewhere, matching the floor can make the base of the run quietly disappear.

The toe kick covers most of the floor line under a run of bases, so quarter round is not needed along the fronts. It is needed where a finished surface comes all the way to the floor.

• At the foot of every finished end panel: the exposed end of a base run, the side of a pantry, and the refrigerator panel. The panels are on the decorative end panel page.
• Around an island clad in panels, on the back and both ends. This is usually the longest single stretch in the kitchen.
• At the foot of a dishwasher panel, where the appliance’s own kick sits back and the panel edge meets the floor.
• Vertically, in the inside corner where an end panel meets a wall that is out of plumb, if the gap is small and even.
• Where a base run meets a wall with no baseboard, as a short return that finishes the joint.

A worked example makes the quantity concrete. An L-shaped kitchen with two exposed base ends, one tall pantry side, and a 6-foot by 3-foot island with panels on the back and both ends needs roughly 2 + 2 + 2 feet at the ends and pantry, plus 6 + 3 + 3 feet around the island: about 18 feet. The piece length is not published on the live list, so confirm it before dividing, and add one piece for mistakes.

Quarter round is meant for a small, fairly even gap. It is not meant to hide a floor that dips an inch across the length of an island, and trying to make it do that leaves a strip of trim that visibly rides up and down along the panel.

If the gap under a panel grows steadily from one end to the other, the fix is further back in the job. Either the cabinets are shimmed level and the panel is scribed to the floor before it is fixed, so the remaining gap is small and even, or the floor is levelled before the cabinets go in. Quarter round then covers what is left. The rule of thumb is simple: if the trim would have to change height along its length to touch both surfaces, the gap is too big for trim.

Tile floors are a separate case. On tile, many installers leave out quarter round entirely and finish the joint between panel and tile with a thin bead of caulk in the grout colour, because a wooden trim on a tile floor can look out of place and sits in the path of mop water. On wood and wood-look floors, quarter round is the norm. Decide which you have before the trim is ordered, since the answer may be that you need less than you thought.

The three places quarter round is cut are the inside corner, the outside corner and the open end, and each has a better and a worse way.

At an inside corner, such as where an end panel meets a wall, a coped joint is better than a mitre. One piece runs into the corner square; the other is cut to the profile of the first and fitted over it. A coped joint stays closed when the wall or floor moves slightly with the seasons, where a mitre opens into a visible gap.

At an outside corner, such as the corner of an island, a mitre is the only option, and it should be glued as well as pinned so the two halves cannot separate. At an open end, where the quarter round stops against nothing, return it on itself with a tiny mitred piece rather than leaving a cut end facing the room. A cut end shows the raw material, and on a coloured finish that shows as a pale dot at floor level. Touch in any cut faces that remain visible with the touch-up kit ($62.40).