Do any of you have advice on baseboards for red rooms? I painted my family room Ralph Lauren Duke Red. My floor is travertine tile. I have two sets of stairs into the room; both are varnished oak. I am seriously confused about baseboards. I want 'tall' baseboards - at least 6 inches, right? But the white seems too bright.
Why not buy a less expensive wood, say a one buy six pine, with quarter round at the floor level, and finish it to match the oak. I think the natural wood is the only way to go with that red. It could be shaped at the top with a router. Home Depot has all this stuff and you can get really good advice from their employees. I do know, since we have bought it, that you can buy miles of their quarter round to finish out baseboards for very little money.
I'd go with a stained wood. My home office has the same red walls (I know what you went through with the paint. Wow.) I got some plain old knotty pine (it's right cheap) and stained it a medium/dark stain with a polyurethane topcoat.
If you are truly interested in the white baseboards, a more muted alternative would be an antiqued white or off-white color. Same effect you are thinking of but because the baseboards wouldn't be truly white there would be less contrast. All depends what you decide you really like!
Stain grade pine looks pretty good with the right stain color. If you cannot bring yourself to combine the pine with the oak, just get the paint grade pine.
If you really do not want white, pick a color from the same color family that is 2 or 3 shades darker or lighter than your floor tile -- it will tie them together.
I recently read the French use black as the color for baseboards. I've seen photos where baseboards were black and the rest of the trim was white. Good luck.
