Need your advice on base moulding

We are updating the base moulding in our new home and I need your advice about the "base shoe".

In many places our hardwood floors do not come all the way to the wall.  I guess this was to leave room for expansion.  In any event, we need to put in a "base shoe" to cover up the gap between the base moulding and the end of the hardwood floor.  This is essentially an extra piece of trim -- looks like a quarter round dowel.

My question is:  What color should this base shoe be?  Should it be white to match the trim or stained dark brown to match our hardwood floor? 

Installer recommends stain-grade base shoe to match the floor and says it will be easier when they paint.  My wife thinks that will look strange and is leaning towards having it be white to match the base moulding.

Is there a right or wrong here?  Who knew life would be filled with such complex, soul-searching questions.

Thanks for your insight and counsel throughout these trying times.

We agree with your wife. We have the same situation in our home. Our floors are a natural finish oak, and they are quite light. We had quarter round stain grade oak installed, but painted it white to match the base moulding. It looks clean and has continuity with the base moulding. We don't agree with your installer that it would be easier when "they paint." We have repainted and think it is abundantly easier to paint the base moulding and quarter round all the same color than it would be to have the quarter round stained. Think about it...masking off that quarter round can't be very easy or effective. Don't know if there is a right way or a wrong way....but we think ours looks great.

Previously GMAndrews wrote:

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I've generally seen it done where it is painted white. Here's a website that sells products that I've purchased -- it might give you some ideas...

http://www.themouldingcompany.com/

I always go with trim color.  It is an extension of the trim not the floor. I also always paint the trim in the same color as the wall and it helps the trim disappear (sorta)

Wait, something doesn't make sense. The purpose of the base mould is to cover the expansion gap. The hardwood floor should extend to about 3/8" from the wall structure (base plate). Then, the base mould goes on top of the gap. THEN, if the floor isn't flat enough and they don't want to go to the trouble of (there is a name for this that I cannot remember) cutting the bottom of the trim to match the rise and fall of the floor, you use a shoe mould to hide the gap between the base mould and the flooring (b/c shoe mould is very flexible). Did they cut the hardwood strips so short that the base mould is not wide enough to cover it all? In any case, I'd stain it to match the floor, and then wait to attach it until the floor and base mould is finished so as to cover up any paint sloppiness.

Well, thanks all for the good advice.  We ended up painting the base shoe white to match the trim and it looks pretty good.  Unfortunately hardwood floor installers left a lot of room between the edge of the wall and the edge of the floor requiring that ugly quarter round base shoe.  Although I'm told the gap allows room for floor expansion, it seems excessive -- especially when the floor that was put in was engineered to have minimal expansion.

Okay thanks all.