Hi,

Husband and I are in a heated debate over moldings. We are going to be redoing the moldings in our 1976 colonial, starting with the upstairs bedrooms for now. Our current moldings are basic builder grade 2.25" colonial casing and 3.25" baseboard and pretty banged up. Our ceilings are 8 foot. We will also be adding 4" crown molding. My husband and I can't seem to agree on molding size, particularly the baseboard.

Casing: We selected a 3.5" Windsor style molding. The lumber yards near us stock 2.5" or 3.5" in the Windsor style molding, and the 2.5" is almost a "why bother", so we are going with the 3.5".

So that brings us to our debate....baseboard size. I am leaning towards 5.25" however my husband likes the 7.25". He feels the scale is better and that the 7.25" pairs better with the 3.5" casing. I actually don't disagree on the size paring between the two pieces however I don't care for the 7.25" base with our ceiling height and room sizes (12x14 or smaller), particularly when it is sitting up another 3/8" off the floor because of the carpet and you add a 4" crown. It just make the wall size seem smaller and more squat and feels overpowering to me. Honestly I wish there was a 6.25" and we could compromise.

Would love input. Is a 3.5" casing and 5.25" baseboard a bad pairing? Too close in size? If using a 5.25" base should we really be going with a 2.5" rather than 3.5" casing? If we want to beef up the casing to 3.5" is 7.25" the best baseboard choice? What would you do? Thanks!

[For reference - Feel free not to read]

Molding Ratio & Sizing: I have read so many articles online about proper size molding and molding ratios and honestly they are all over the place. Here are just a few things I read....

- Rule of thumb: 8 ft ceiling 3"-5" base and 10 ft ceiling 5" - 7" base

- 7% solution: Baseboard 7% of ceiling height (so 8' ceiling = 6.72" baseboard)

- 50% rule: Casing should be half the size of baseboard. (So 7" base with 3.5" casing)

- Add 1": Baseboards should be 1" greater than casing. This appears to be what we have with our current molding. (So 4.5" base with 3.5" casing)

- Add 2": Baseboards should be at least 2" greater than casing (so 6.5" base with 3.5" casing)

- 3 to 5 ratio: One millwork site recommended 3" - 3.5" casing for 8 ft ceiling and 6'8" doorways and said for base to use a 3 to 5 ratio, so a 3.25" casing would have a 5.5" base and a 4.25" casing would have a 7" base, etc. So this would mean a a 5.83" base with our 3.5" casing

- 1 to 1.7 ratio: So 5.95" base with 3.5" casing.