Installing new flooring in a Toronto home almost always means dealing with your baseboards. The question of whether to keep them, work around them, or replace them entirely is one of the most common — and most easily mishandled — details in a GTA renovation. Get it right and the finished room looks clean and professional. Get it wrong and you'll spend the next five years staring at gaps, scribe cuts, and trim that looks like an afterthought.
Here is what Toronto homeowners and contractors need to know before they commit to a baseboard strategy in any renovation involving new flooring.
Can You Install New Flooring and Keep the Existing Baseboards?
Yes — in most cases you can keep your existing baseboards and still install new flooring. The most common approach is to slip the new flooring planks in underneath the existing baseboard, which requires either a flooring installation robot tool or careful use of a pry bar to slightly lift the trim just enough to get the flooring under it. This method works well for all floating-floor products including our SPC vinyl collection, laminate, and engineered hardwood.
The alternative is to leave the baseboards in place and run the new flooring tight against them, then cover the expansion gap with a piece of quarter-round or baseboard shoe moulding. This is the most common approach in occupied Toronto homes where removing the trim is more disruptive than working around it. It is fast, it works, and when done cleanly it is nearly invisible.
What you cannot do is install flooring and leave a raw expansion gap visible against the bottom of an existing baseboard. That gap will show, it will collect dust, and it signals to anyone who knows flooring that the job was not finished properly.
How Much Does New Flooring Raise the Floor — and Why Does That Matter for Baseboards?
Every flooring product sits on top of the subfloor and adds thickness. The amount it adds matters because it changes the relationship between the bottom of your baseboard and the surface of your new floor — and that gap is exactly what determines which baseboard strategy you need.
SPC vinyl plank is the thinnest common option in the GTA, adding roughly 6mm to 10mm depending on the product. Laminate typically adds 10mm to 14mm. Engineered hardwood adds 18mm (¾") for most products. If you are replacing carpet — which sits flush with the top of your baseboard trim — with any hard-surface flooring, you will have a gap between the bottom of the baseboard and the new floor surface that was not there before.
For SPC vinyl in particular, most products from our SPC vinyl collection have an attached underlayment pad that adds to the total height. Riche Flooring 6mm SPC with its IXPE pad sits at roughly 6mm total; the 10mm Riche Ultra-Thick with EVA pad sits at 10mm. Measure your actual product thickness before planning your baseboard approach.
Three Ways to Handle Baseboards When Installing New Flooring
There are three broadly accepted approaches in GTA renos. Each has a time, a place, and a right way to execute it.
Option 1: Lift and tuck. Use a trim puller to carefully raise the existing baseboard just enough to slide the new flooring underneath. Then push the baseboard back down against the new floor. This gives the cleanest result because the baseboard now sits directly on top of the new floor with no gap and no moulding needed. It takes more time — plan for an extra 30 to 60 minutes per room — but the finished look is worth it. It works best when the baseboards are in good condition and the pry bar does not dent or scratch the paint.
Option 2: Leave in place, add scribe or shoe moulding. Leave the baseboards exactly where they are, install the new floor up to them leaving a proper ⅜" expansion gap, then install a piece of scribe moulding, quarter-round, or baseboard shoe to cover the gap. This is the most common approach in occupied Toronto homes. It works for all flooring types. Use a colour-matched moulding that blends with your existing trim rather than standing out as a band-aid fix. Our baseboard trim installation service handles this entire step for homeowners who want it done correctly the first time.
Option 3: Remove, install flooring, reinstall same trim. Strip the baseboards off entirely, install the new floor, then rehang the existing trim. This only works if the baseboards are well-attached, relatively straight, and the drywall behind them is in decent shape. It also requires filling and touching up the nail holes. This approach makes the most sense when you are also doing other millwork work in the room — painting, replacing window trim, or updating door casings — so the extra repair work fits naturally into the broader scope.
What Mistakes Do GTA Homeowners Make with Baseboards and New Flooring?
The single most common mistake is installing the flooring tight against the baseboard with no expansion gap, then discovering the floor has nowhere to expand when the Ontario summer humidity hits and the boards expand by ⅛" or more. This is the mistake that leads to peaked seams, gaps at the joints, and in severe cases, buckle or lift at the edges of the room.
The second most common mistake is adding a too-wide moulding as a cover-up for a too-large gap. A ½" quarter-round looks like exactly what it is — a patch. A properly cut scribe moulding that follows the contours of the baseboard is the mark of a professional finish. If you are using a shoe moulding, ¾" or smaller looks correct. Anything wider draws the eye to the fact that you are hiding something.
A third mistake is failing to account for the height change when combining two different flooring products in adjacent rooms. If you are putting 6mm SPC vinyl in the basement and 18mm engineered hardwood in the main floor hallway, your baseboard heights will be different in each room after the renovation unless you adjust one or the other. Resolve this before you order materials, not after the floor is down.
Coordinating Baseboard Height with Different Flooring Types
If you are using multiple flooring products across different levels or rooms — a common situation in GTA side-split and back-split homes — the height difference between flooring types directly affects how your baseboards will look at each transition.
For most GTA main-floor renovations involving hardwood or engineered hardwood, the floor will sit approximately ¾" above the concrete or plywood subfloor. In a Scarborough bungalow with a concrete basement slab and hardwood on the main floor, that ¾" difference is significant enough that basement baseboards sitting on a thin SPC floor look noticeably shorter than main-floor baseboards sitting on hardwood. In these situations, some homeowners install a wider baseboard moulding in the basement — a 4¼" to 5¼" style — to visually balance the lower floor height. Others switch to a different profile entirely, using a simple flat ranch moulding that reads cleanly against SPC without needing to match the main-floor trim height exactly.
When using our engineered hardwood collection — available in 6.5" and 7.5" wide plank from $3.69/sqft — the subfloor preparation is typically done first, then the flooring is installed, then the baseboard strategy is executed. Never order your baseboard materials until the new floor is down and you can measure the actual gap you need to cover.
Should You Install Baseboards Before or After the New Floor?
In a gut renovation where everything is being torn out anyway, the ideal sequence is: install the new subfloor if needed, then install the new flooring, then install fresh baseboard trim on top of the new floor. This gives you the cleanest possible result because the baseboard sits directly on the finished floor with no gaps, no scribe cuts, and no moulding required.
In a partial renovation where you are keeping the existing baseboards, the sequence depends on which option above you are using. For lift-and-tuck, you remove the baseboard first, install the floor, then rehang the same trim. For the scribe-and-shoe approach, you install the floor first, then add the moulding. For a full remove-and-replace, the same logic applies as a gut renovation — floor first, then fresh trim.
If your renovation includes painting, the ideal order is actually: flooring first, baseboards second, painting last. This way the painter cuts in directly against the new baseboard for the cleanest paint line. Painting before flooring means the painter's tape is on the old baseboard, and when that baseboard comes off or gets bumped during flooring installation, you end up with touch-up work that could have been avoided.
Our Top Picks at Top Floorings Depot
Matching baseboards to new flooring is easier when you start with products that give you clean transitions. Here are the products that work best in GTA renovation scenarios like this one.
European Oak Verita 7.5" Engineered Hardwood — 3mm wear layer, ¾" total thickness. At $3.99/sqft to $4.19/sqft, the Verita gives you a full ¾" floor height that matches standard Canadian solid hardwood, making baseboard transitions simple and clean. The wire-brushed character grade hides everyday wear well in busy Toronto households. Image: 
Appalachian Earth Hard Maple 4¼" Prestige Grade — Canadian-made solid hardwood, ¾" thick. At $5.69/sqft, this is the go-to for homeowners who want real hardwood on the main floor and need baseboards that sit at the traditional GTA height. The Earth tone (warm medium brown) works in both modern and traditional interiors. Image: 
Swiss Krono Grey Oak 10mm AC5 Laminate — Made in Germany, Valinge locking, AC5 commercial grade at $0.80 to $1.39/sqft. At 10mm total thickness it sits lower than engineered hardwood, which means you may need a slightly wider baseboard shoe moulding to cover the gap — but the AC5 rating means this floor handles heavy use without showing wear. The grey oak tone reads as a neutral light floor that works with almost any wall colour. Image: 
Appalachian Natural Red Oak 4¼" Excel Grade — Canadian solid hardwood, ¾" thick. At approximately $5.39/sqft, the Natural Red Oak is a versatile mid-tone that many GTA homeowners choose as a default when they are not sure about colour. It matches a wide range of existing trim in Toronto's post-war housing stock. Image: 
For homeowners who want professional installation of both flooring and trim in one visit, our baseboard trim installation service handles the full scope — including scribe moulding cut to match your baseboard profile exactly.
## Visit Top Floorings Depot **Top Floorings Depot** 3781 Victoria Park Avenue, Unit 1, Toronto, ON M1W 3K5 www.topfloorings.com Call 416-499-0117 | Text 416-770-8819 **Showroom Hours:** Monday–Friday 9–5:30 | Saturday 9–4 | Sunday Closed We serve homeowners and contractors across Toronto, Scarborough, Markham, North York, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, and Etobicoke. Visit our showroom to see engineered hardwood, SPC vinyl, and laminate options in person, or contact us to discuss your renovation baseboard and flooring strategy before you order materials. GTA-wide delivery available. Follow us on Instagram: @topflooringsdepotgta