$2.80 per linear ft supplied and installed Fitted after the floor Filling and caulking priced $250 minimum project charge

Baseboard installation in Toronto

Baseboard is the last trade in the room for a structural reason, and Toronto Flooring Co sequences it after the floor so it covers the expansion gap instead of fighting it.

Measured in linear feet, with the pricing basis stated

Removal, replacement and shoe moulding as separate rates

Mitres cut to the wall you have, not the wall on the drawing

Filled and caulked ready for paint where that is in scope

Price your baseboard

Rooms, rough linear footage, and whether the existing baseboard is coming off or staying.

What can we help with?

Service

So the right crew reviews your project.

Any workmanship warranty is set out in your written quote, job by job.

Sequence

The expansion gap behind a baseboard

A floating floor has to be able to move. Laminate and click-lock vinyl are laid without fasteners and expand and contract as a single sheet, so an expansion gap is left around the entire perimeter and at every fixed obstacle. Wood does the same thing for its own reasons: it shrinks across the grain by several percent between damp and dry and barely at all along its length, so a room full of boards accumulates real movement at the walls. That gap has to stay open, and baseboard is what hides it. Fit the baseboard first and you either have to cut the floor tight to it, which pinches the floor, or scribe the floor around trim that was never meant to be a finished edge. Fit it after, and the gap is covered, the floor is free and the room looks intentional. That sequence is also why doing the floor and the trim as one project costs less than two visits.

What baseboard work covers

Measured in linear feet

Trim is priced along the wall, not across the floor, so the number you care about is perimeter. A small room with four doorways and a fireplace has more linear feet and more mitres than its square footage suggests, and that shows up in the quote.

Removal handled separately

Taking old baseboard off is its own rate. Removal only runs about $1 per linear foot; removal with new baseboard installed in its place runs about $4. Reusing old trim is possible where it comes off clean, and we will tell you honestly whether yours will.

Filling and caulking as a stated line

Nail holes filled and the top edge caulked to the wall is the difference between trim that reads as finished and trim that reads as installed. Baseboard with filling and caulking runs about $4.50 per linear foot, and we show it as its own line so nobody assumes it either way.

Baseboard and trim rates in Toronto

Collected September 2026. Read the basis before you compare: one Toronto source quotes $2.80 per linear foot supplied and installed, while an Ontario source quotes $3 to $5 per linear foot for labour only. Those are different numbers describing different things.

Supplied and installed

$2.80 / linear ft

Toronto rate, material and labour together
Standard profile
Mitres, coping and fastening included
Filling and caulking quoted on top

Price supplied and installed

Labour only

$3-$5 / linear ft

Ontario rate, you supply the trim
Higher than the supplied rate because the basis is different
Removal only $1 per linear ft
Removal and replacement $4 per linear ft

Price labour only

Upgrades and finishing

$1.50-$5 / linear ft

Tall or detailed profiles $5 per linear ft
Shoe moulding $1.50 per linear ft
With filling and caulking $4.50 per linear ft
Minimum project charge $250

Ask about profiles

Our Process

How a trim job runs

1

Measure the perimeter

Linear feet room by room, doorways and returns counted, profile height chosen against the floor and the door casings you already have.

2

Strip and make good

Old baseboard off where it is being replaced, fasteners pulled, and the wall bottom checked for damage that needs filling before new trim covers it.

3

Cut, cope and fix

Inside corners coped rather than mitred so they stay closed when the house moves, outside corners mitred to the angle the wall really is, and trim fixed into studs.

4

Fill, caulk and hand over

Nail holes filled, the top edge caulked where that is in scope, shoe moulding added if the floor line calls for it, then a walk of every wall with you.

What we check before quoting trim

Three things that decide whether a baseboard job is straightforward or not.

Whether the old trim can come off intact

Baseboard nailed into plaster and lath in a 1910s York or High Park house rarely comes off clean, and pulling it can take the plaster face with it. We look before we promise reuse, and where it will not survive we price new trim plus wall repair rather than discovering it on the day.

Whether the floor is level along the wall

Baseboard sits on the floor, so a floor that dips leaves a gap under the trim. Shoe moulding at about $1.50 per linear foot follows the floor and closes it, which is usually cheaper and better looking than scribing every length of baseboard to a wavy floor.

Whether the job clears the minimum

There is a $250 minimum project charge in this trade and we say so rather than surprising you with it. On a single room of trim you will often be at or near that floor, which is the practical argument for pairing baseboard with the floor install rather than booking it as its own small visit.

The linear foot rate on a baseboard quote

Trim pricing in Ontario comes in two flavours and they get quoted as though they were interchangeable. Supplied and installed means the contractor buys the baseboard and fits it: the Toronto figure for a standard profile is $2.80 per linear foot. Labour only means you buy the trim and the contractor fits it: the Ontario figure is $3 to $5 per linear foot.

The second number looks higher and describes less work. Once you add the cost of the material you bought yourself, the two land much closer together. The lesson is not that one contractor is expensive, it is that a quote without a stated basis cannot be compared to anything.

The other rates sit around those two. Removal only is about $1 per linear foot. Removal with replacement is about $4. Shoe moulding is about $1.50. Tall or detailed profiles are about $5. Baseboard with filling and caulking included comes to about $4.50. And a $250 minimum project charge exists regardless of how small the room is.

The cost of booking baseboard separately

The sequencing argument is also a cost argument. When the floor and the trim are one scope, the crew is already in the room, the expansion gap is already set out, the transitions and the baseboard get planned against each other, and the trim goes on the same week rather than after a separate booking.

Split them and you pay for two mobilisations, you risk running into the $250 minimum on the smaller half, and you introduce the coordination problem where the trim carpenter arrives to find a floor laid tight to the wall with nowhere to put a fastener.

On a whole-floor project, the transitions and trim allowance typically runs $200 to $600, which is the figure to look for on a flooring quote. If it is missing, the trim has not been priced, and it will be priced later.

Baseboard corners in a pre-war Toronto house

Walls that are not straight are the first problem, and they are normal in pre-war stock. A mitre cut at forty five degrees assumes a ninety degree corner. Older plaster corners are frequently a degree or two off, which opens the joint. Coping the inside corners rather than mitring them solves it, because a coped joint stays closed as the house moves through a Toronto winter.

Plaster and lath is the second. York’s Humewood and Oakwood Village stock dates from the 1910s, and High Park’s surrounding streets were developed in the decades following 1900, both firmly in the plaster era. Old baseboard pinned into that substrate does not always release cleanly, and the repair belongs in the quote rather than in a conversation on the day.

Second-storey additions are the third, and East York is where we see it most, since many of its single-storey bungalows have added floors above. An original 1947 room and a modern addition meeting at a doorway usually have different floor heights and different baseboard profiles. Somebody has to decide whether the trim matches the old half, the new half, or gets replaced through both, and that decision is cheaper made at quoting time than at installation time.

Baseboard questions

Should baseboard go on before or after the new floor?

After, in almost every case. A floating floor needs an expansion gap around the perimeter and baseboard is what covers it. Fit the trim first and the floor either gets cut tight, which stops it moving and causes buckling, or gets scribed around trim that was not designed as a finished edge. The one exception is where trim is being painted in place before a floor goes in and the painter wants clear access, and even then the final scribe and the shoe moulding wait for the floor.

Why is one baseboard quote $2.80 and another $5?

Because they are priced on different bases and both are real. A Toronto source quotes $2.80 per linear foot supplied and installed, meaning the trim and the labour together. An Ontario source quotes $3 to $5 per linear foot for labour only, with you buying the material. Add material to the second number and the gap narrows considerably. Profile also moves it: tall or detailed baseboard runs about $5 per linear foot. Always ask which basis you are holding before comparing two quotes.

Do I need shoe moulding if I am keeping my existing baseboard?

Usually yes. Leaving the old baseboard in place and running new floor up to it is the fast, economical route, but the new floor will not land at exactly the same height as the old one and the expansion gap still has to be covered. Shoe moulding at about $1.50 per linear foot does both jobs. It also follows a floor that is not perfectly flat, which a rigid baseboard cannot.

Is there a minimum charge for a small trim job?

Yes, a $250 minimum project charge applies in this trade, and it is there because the setup, travel and equipment for one room are much the same as for a whole floor. If you have a single room of baseboard, the economical move is to attach it to other work in the same visit. Where you are having a floor installed anyway, adding the trim to that scope is materially cheaper than booking it separately.