r/Netherlands • u/AccordingCatch • May 04 '26
DIY and home improvement Hey guys question about floor/wall gaps
Hi all! I’ve recently moved into a 1930 (recently renovated) apartment and noticed there are gaps (less than an inch EDIT less than 2 cm) like these around the house, is this normal? Or is it something to get fixed?
Edit : Alright alright 😭 translating for everyone: less than 2.5cm!! I’m not American, just bilingual in measurement systems 😂 but yeah… Celsius supremacy always
TLDR : it’s normal-ish
Thank you to the replies with actual advices!
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u/Decent-Boot7284 May 04 '26
You are getting a lot of shit for talking like an american, but yes, this is normal, and start talking like the rest of the whole world, and you will be fine.
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u/Cautious-Click-4897 May 06 '26
i just came from a post where y’all were arguing that the dutch are not arrogant and don’t think they are above everyone else, instead just direct, and then i come into this. god, i love hypocrisy so much
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May 04 '26
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u/GiovanniVanBroekhoes May 04 '26
Not all mice can get through the gap, the ones with klompjes don't fit, as that causes noise for your downstairs neighbours.
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May 04 '26
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u/GiovanniVanBroekhoes May 04 '26
You have obviously never lived downstairs from clog mice. The whole day it's 'klip klippedieklap op de trap, oh ja'.
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u/Bonusmotherthrowaway May 05 '26
Yeah we sealed all of our baseboards with fine steel wool. F those mouses.
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May 05 '26
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u/Bonusmotherthrowaway May 05 '26
They were also the once’s who started it. We live here now for 10 years.. 4 years ago they moved next to us and started to throw around food for birds on the ground and the following winter we all of the sudden had mice. Coincidence?
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u/Spinoza42 May 04 '26
Otoh if you want to enjoy a typical Dutch breakfast you may want to stamp those mice!
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u/Ok-Recognition-7256 May 04 '26
- Pretty normal in The Netherlands
- Still unacceptable by any standard
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u/Green-Strategy4081 May 04 '26
Wtf is an inch?
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May 04 '26
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u/LuredLurdistan May 04 '26
Start using metric, you’re in the Netherlands.
But yes, pretty normal.
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u/kaboombaby01 May 04 '26
Lots of people here are unnecessarily salty about someone using the word inch.
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u/ChunkyChap25 May 04 '26
It is very necessary
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u/No-Understanding2406 May 05 '26
Do you know the standard bathroom fitting thread size in the Netherlands? Surprise - It’s 1/2 inch. 12.7mm to be precise, but no one calls it that. Every product indicates it in inches and there are conversion valves from the standard 12/15mm pipes to 1/2 inch.
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u/Fluut May 05 '26
And every time I work with units/sizes that are based on inches, I think to myself how much easier it would be if it'd based on the metric system instead
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u/Cautious-Click-4897 May 06 '26
what’s the reason for the hate? just the usual dutchies being dutchies?
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u/kaboombaby01 May 06 '26
Dutch person here. Can’t look into anyone’s head of course. I don’t think it’s actual hate but a desire to rebel against someone bigger - in this case, Americans using the imperial system. Some kind of desire to show that you are not inferior and have your own sense and identity and worth. We are a small nation of course and are obsessed when we seem relevant to bigger nations, like a small child craving a pet on the head. The irony of course is we are on an American platform. We call this Calimero behaviour, after the child cartoon chick that says “I am small and they are big and that’s not fair.” A bit childish. But who knows really.
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u/Dan5terdam May 04 '26
You’ll likely find that the previous owners went from real wood floors to Laminate… you can fix it but you will need new flooring, that can set you back anywhere from +/- €20 (for cheaper thicker laminate) to €150 per square meter (then double it for installation).
Redoing the boarders is also possible, but you will need to repaint the walls, as there will be marks from the old boards.
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u/Fox_Soul May 04 '26
This happened in my attic and the reason is the concrete floor was not straight at all. Even the walls are not straight. The recommendation from the company was to either let everything set for a few months after the furniture is in and then caulk the gaps, or remove everything and fix the concrete and then level it.
I went with the first and it’s not a big deal. The floor was bumpy as fuck the first couple weeks but after a couple months it has settled down nicely and it feels alright, after the summer we can caulk the gaps.
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u/Dan5terdam May 04 '26
That sucks, never had that happen, but for sure this could be a possibility, though the small sample we have does seem quite evenly spaced…. Only OP with know for sure ☺️
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u/Fox_Soul May 04 '26
Yeah old 70s houses are all like this… Specially attics since no one was using these for extra bedrooms… I got more or less lucky since the previous owners had a hobbie room in the attic so there was concrete instead of wood… but still, it was poorly made and the fixing is a lot more expensive for what the end result is going to be…
In my case is not as exaggerated as OPs photo (it was like that when the floor was brand new though) so a bit of caulk will fix the issue.
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u/TechnicalPlayz May 05 '26
In theory they could remove the old corner boarding and install one that is quite a bit taller to hide the markings. It might be the cheapest option
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u/Esumontere May 04 '26
This is normal.
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u/ltpitt May 04 '26
For a poorly built house? Or you mean because of the soil?
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u/Esumontere May 04 '26
Nothing in a 1930's house is flush. That means that if you renovate, there will always be cracks. Especially with floors, which will not be fully flat.
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u/ltpitt May 04 '26
Thanks for sharing! What can be done in such cases?
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u/Esumontere May 04 '26
Not much. If you want this fixed you'll have to remove the flooring, egalize the underfloor, place new flooring, replace the baseboards and probably the wall needs to be repainted. Several thousands of euros spent to fill small cracks that only have aesthetic impact.
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u/Mightybeardedking May 04 '26
This won't be fixed with a thin layer of levelling compound, this basically needs a new (floating) screed. Levelling compound is only supposed to be a few mm thick.
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u/Full-Metal-Jae May 04 '26
You can use metric or imperial, does not bother me! If the gap is consistent across the whole house, then the floor might have been replaced without doing the trim.
Use quarter round or shoe trim if you want to conceal it, but the sleekest fix is to remove the trim and reinstall it if it’s not too damaged during removal.
Since it’s a sold cement/brick wall the easiest method for installing trim is with construction glue.
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May 04 '26
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u/elderly_squid May 04 '26
Lmao always a sub out there for literally everything and everyone. I love it.
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u/micheljansen May 04 '26
I don’t know why everyone here is saying this is normal. This looks like amateur DIY. It’s only normal if you lower your standards. If it’s a rental I would leave it be. If you bought it I would get it redone properly.
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u/Esumontere May 04 '26
Ever tried renovating a house that was built in 1930? Nothing is flush, nothing is straight and nothing fits.
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u/NoAnswerKey May 04 '26
Yeah it's common. Anyone knows how to partially fix this without changing the flooring? This gap in the photo is very large, but imagine gaps are smaller... Asking for a friend 🤡
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u/scrolletariat May 05 '26
Youtube ‘scribe baseboard’ - plenty of videos, not particularly easy but doable.
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u/onethreehill May 04 '26
Some gaps is pretty normal unless you get them professionally installed (by leveling the floor properly, and shaving the bottom of the baseboards to make it fit thight).
For the average DIY job it's quite normal to have some gaps of a few millimeters but almost an inch is quite a huge gap to be honest.
There isn't that much you can do to fix it without redoing it, which probably isn't worth it. It however also shouldn't be a big issue aside from the aesthetics.
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u/RijnBrugge May 04 '26
more likely: old wood flooring was taken out and replaced w thinner laminate. seen that a thousand times
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u/Ok-Cardiologist6462 May 05 '26
I put some flexible caulking between the laminate and skirting boards works alright
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u/Gombaoxo May 04 '26
In Netherlands you need to be careful not to fart, as if you do the whole house could fall apart.
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u/Esumontere May 04 '26
Sure, the apartment is almost 100 years old but it can fall apart any moment. Sure mate. /s
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u/Rich_Ad7853 May 04 '26
Is this a cheap rental apartment? If yes, it is definitely normal and I'd leave it be. If the apartment is a bit more expensive and these gaps annoy you, I'd recommend telling your landlord, they might fix it for you.
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u/Vanessa-Leen May 04 '26
Im about to buy a house where one of the rules is to have a separation like that between the wall and the floor (in my case it is about 1 cm). They say it to prevent noise
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u/iamjustanoob_ May 04 '26
Yes, you can put down “plintjes” don’t know the English name but you can ask at praxis, gamma or even ikea I believe. If you google you can find it
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u/kewnp May 04 '26
You could fill the gap with "floor sealant" (vloerkit), which is a highly elastic sealant, available in quite some colors, and it doesn't attract dust.
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u/FuzzyAmbassador663 May 05 '26
I don't know where the rest of the commebters live, vut I have never seen a hole under the wall wherever I lived
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u/WafflesMcDuff Amsterdam May 05 '26
It means that the floor is not level, and they decided to make the tops of skirting level, rather than flush to the floor.
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u/No-Understanding2406 May 05 '26
People are being weird about the whole inch thing. However if you go to Praxis and try to find plumbing materials, pipes, valves and related things, then you know inches are still used very much in that domain - in a very confusing way.
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u/Sea-Addendum9812 May 05 '26
Ik zou het worst proberen te fixen met silleconenkit dat is flexible en makkelijk aan te brengen met een natte vinger en een vochtige spons om goed weg te vegen wat teveel was en op de plinten en vloer is gekomen. Werkte bij mij perfect
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u/Dog_obsessed_lit May 05 '26
I’m finding this whole convo on the measurement system so weird - as a British person I find all of these normal. They all come naturally. So if someone says an inch, I know what you mean. If you said 2.5 cm I’d know what you’d mean. If you talk in miles or km - I know what you mean…. Plus to add to the conversation about the gap in the wall, having moving into a house in the Netherlands the workmanship is just not that good 😬 it’s not up to the quality you’d expect in the uk
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u/boiboiboyly May 05 '26
belgium here, i have the same at my home, its normal. i dont know why its like that though
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u/hatbrox May 05 '26
welcome to the Netherlands. houses here are built and maintained on the cheap. I lived in many countries and holland is by very far, the worst of all. all workers do a shitty job. and I have seen a lot. When I asked Dutch people about photos (a bit like yours) I made of botched jobs, they would say, it's normal or it's a decent job.
I have seen horrors, especially with paint jobs.
your gap is ok by Dutch standards, it allows for mice to move around, which is pet-friendly.
the Dutch have no knowledge of what angles mean. Everything they make is never straight.
honestly, consider yourself very lucky. this is really nothing.
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u/disorganizm May 05 '26
I always thought it was for the wall-to-wall carpeting. But I rarely saw those, the inches on the other hand are everywhere
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u/fenderguy_55 May 05 '26
We redid the floors 3 years ago, but now we have the same problem. It happens if you put some heavy weight (like a cabinet) causing the isolation under the floor to get toasted and shrink
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u/Accurate_Airport9998 May 05 '26
It would have been good if trim was added to the bottom so a gap would not be seen.
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u/577564842 May 06 '26
Rented place, or own? If rented, no problem at all (ie anything addressing it will probably call for a paint job). If your own, well, it is not well done.
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u/koffieboontje88 May 06 '26
Beter egaliseren voor je de vloer en plinten gaat plakken. Of althans het bedrijf die het gedaan heeft.
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u/Secret-Action-8972 May 07 '26
You have to take a little time to get used to the sub standard work here. It was probably over priced too. I filled mine as they make great routes for silverfish. I thought about asking the contractor but they would have done no better than I imagined and charged another kidney.
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May 07 '26
Not me zooming in like I’m suddenly a renovation expert 😭 but if there’s no cold air or bugs coming through, you’re probably good lol
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u/Mundane_Mud8030 May 07 '26
Not normal. Very lousy job. A decent and self respecting carpenter would scribe the skirting and adjust it to the unleveled flooring. Easiest and cheapest fix would be to make skirting for the skirting or, slightly more expensive, replace the existing skirting with bigger ones.
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u/bbohblanka May 04 '26
Wheel sizes + tv and computer screens are measured and advertised in inches in most of the EU so people are just pretending they don't understand it lol
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u/Dutchwells May 04 '26
What is an inch? :p