you can hold the gwb off the floor and spec a j-bead at the bottom that the contractor will plaster against.....you can get that detail from usg or any drywall any accessory manuf.

wall board before flooring, so it may be tricky to get flooring under the reveal since the flooring is typically floated and held off the wall

kind of a pain and a waste to me but could do a short layer of gwb at the base and then fur the room gwb out over it, i dont know it sounds like a lot of work to do what you are talking about

for the door, bill massie's little american house at cranbrook has a 1/8-1/4" gap between the door frame and the finish surround, unfortunately I took really crappy pictures of the entire thing and I dont have one to show you.

aseid, yeah there is a reason things are built the way the are so i understand that going against certain conventions is more time consuming and difficult, luckily i am doing it myself.

someone else suggested to me to just add a second layer of gwp to the wall, that way the floor would appear to just slide underneath the wall edge. seems like it could be a waste of $$$ but easy.

as for the doors thanks i will look that up.

found the photo

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29946608@N07/

I'd recommend looking at some of the reveals that Fry Reglet offers. You basically install sheetrock, install one of these reveals over it, mud over that, and paint. These are extremely common.

http://www.fryreglet.com/details/reveals/pop/129.htm

http://www.fryreglet.com/details/reveals/pop/116.htm

Your contractor will give you a hard time, because installing reveals like this outside the normal construction order. And most contractors can't think when you send a "new" detail their way. They'd prefer to just throw a chunk of trim over any mistakes or gaps.

Also check http://www.gordonceilings.com/default.asp for less expensive products.

try EZYJAMB - name is terrible, but it's a great look:

http://www.faststud.net.au/

hope this helps.

farwest -- what's been your luck with the durabililty of the mudded edge on that base detail? Like with vacuum cleaners banging into them, etc.... I suppose the bigger 6-inch reveal would cure most of those types of problems --

I used to belong to a health club that had a nice clean base detail, and yet was able to take a beating from floor scrubbers, etc. Basically, there was about a 3" simple wood base that matched the wood floor, and then a 1/2" reveal between the base and the drywall. The face of the wood base was maybe 1/8" proud of the face of the wall, but there's no reason it couldn't be flush. So you get a very clean detail, the contractor won't hate you, and the wall won't get trashed by the cleaning person.

Lig.....Portland Maine Museum has a similar detai....but yikes it is expensive...honed slate floor....honed slate base ...reveal and drywall... actually the honed slate outlines the gallery space and the base floor is quarter sawn pine with a rich red finish.... it is a suculent detail.

The reveal baseboard can look pretty bad after a while, just like having no baseboard would. I find that it's more of an issue of the paint getting scuffed than any damage to the reveal itself. A few black shoes scraping against it and it looks downright ugly.

I prefer to keep the baseboard but make it flush with the wall, using a z-reglet (this is the detail that LIG mentions above.) Still modern, but more durable.

Like I said, contractors tend to hate these details.

luckily there wont be a contractor on this one, its my place and I am doing the work myself.

its a good exercise to re think these details and to not take everything for granted. obviously there are sound construction principles to follow. but most finishing details are so annoying to me "put up some baseboard and gobs of sealant to cover the gaps" I think as long as it doesn't reinvent the wheel its good to reconsider some of these conventions.

thanks for the help all.

FWIW, I wouldn't recommend the reveal at the floor (sans base) if you're renovating an older building with uneven floors, as any imperfections in the floor will stick out like a sore thumb where it meets the wall and goes under the reveal. My former firm had this detail in their office, which was in an old loft building. Nice intent, but horrible results.

I second LIG. After installing hard wood flooring for the better part of the past 2 months, I was amazed at how uneven the floors were (in new construction, too). The reason you have base board is two-fold.

1- because you want a little space between the wall and the edge of your flooring (wood) to accomodate the expansion of the wood

2- becuse your floors and walls are many times uneven and this helps fill the gaps


that being said, I have seen many details where there isnt any baseboard and they look great if well done

as for the door frames, one thing that you could do (if it is for your own place) is to take the door frame and cut a lip to accept the drywall mud / plaster on at the face of the frame.

You should nail a 2x all around the frame to act as a nailer for the drywall so that the drywall and door frame move together (this will hopefully prevent cracking at the joint between the doorframe and drywall)

If you do this, remember to take into acount the added 3" in width and 1.5" in height when you are rough framing.




Another thing that you could do it get a rounded drywall corner bead and wrap the drywall mud / plaster around the door frame and return it into the jamb. You will need a deeper jamb to do this, but it could look really nice. This is a detail found in many mission style houses

this isn't that old of building its a 1968 low rise apartment building built with reinforced concrete. the interior walls are 4" concrete block as well. that is of course not to say that there will not be any imperfections. that is an important point i forgot, the expansion of material and allowing for those tolerances.

I wont be using wood for flooring, this is miami florida and i am concerned about the humidity and sunlight with certain wood floors.

mdler: those points about the door frames where you just plaster around the opening was something i was considering. I also was considering in a few places where I will have a sliding door. mounting that door "barn style" sliding on the inside of the room, in this case a closet or bathroom, and rounding the corners (think art deco) or chamfering it back like a knife edge.

right now my thinking is to go forward changing out the door frames, probably will redo the baseboard, but perhaps a thin and taller 1x. definitely for me at least i am not a big fan of using the floor (tile in this case) as the baseboard material. it makes a weird "tray" effect, especially in smaller spaces with ceiling less than 10 feet. I prefer having some sort of separation in material from the floor and wall, in most cases.

all good points to consider im glad i asked.