Vintage Baseboard In My Kitchen

Incorporating vintage details into my 120 year old house feels like the right thing to do.  So when we decided to tear up the old flooring in the kitchen, including the rubbery plastic baseboard that edged it -- I was ready to look toward a more original look.

 I believe all of the floors in our house were originally wide pine when it was built in 1895.  We can argue taking things back to the "original" until we are blue in the face.  I believe between 1915-1920 most of the floors were covered over with narrow maple -- so some of the non-original floors have been around for 100 years.  Shouldn't we honor their age as well?  It all comes down to what looks right with the house, best serves our purposes (and budget), and would be good for resale of the house.  So we choose a light colored wood plank laminate for the kitchen floor -- waterproof and has a lifetime guarantee.

But, I knew from the get-go that I wanted the same type of Victorian baseboard in my kitchen that I had in the rest of the house.  Mr Handyman actually was trying to clean out a barn last fall, and gave me quite a bit of the baseboard.  It had a lovely chippy white look.  I knew the amount would be tight, and that definitely there would not be enough to trim out around the island.  So I started looking....

And ended up buying a huge pile of painted white interior house trim.  It turned out most of it was door molding/trim (argh) but enough was matching baseboard that we ended up having enough to use to finish out the kitchen.  (There were also some interesting pieces in the pile that I was able to sell, and they paid for the whole pile.)  Mr Handyman was able to use some of the door trim to do the baseboard around the island. .I did put a matte coat of polycrylic on the baseboard in case it contained lead, or would try to continue to chip off.  Love the look, especially with the wainscoting (which is original).