Allay my fears about fitting skirting boards!

Gavin83

maisie_cat said:

We replaced old skirting in all the rooms in our last house, where no rooms were square.
A digital angle finder will be worth every penny and a sliding mitre as well as caulk.
I scribed internal angles because I found it easier on odd angles, I actually made a router template from ply for the repeated scribed ends.
I did the first room in MDF but hated the plasticky look & having to wear a mask so used real wood for the other rooms.

OP, much like maisie_cat I don't like the look of MDF skirting boards either, so before buying them I'd make sure you're happy with it. There are definitely advantages to using MDF though, although there are also advantages to using real wood. For me the main disadvantage of MDF (besides the look) is I find they're easier to damage. You just need to decide what's better for your needs.

It's worth noting my real wood skirting boards were quite bent, the main disadvantage to real wood IMO. It took a bit of effort to straighten them out but now they're on the wall they look great.

greensalad

Gavin83 said:

maisie_cat said:

We replaced old skirting in all the rooms in our last house, where no rooms were square.
A digital angle finder will be worth every penny and a sliding mitre as well as caulk.
I scribed internal angles because I found it easier on odd angles, I actually made a router template from ply for the repeated scribed ends.
I did the first room in MDF but hated the plasticky look & having to wear a mask so used real wood for the other rooms.

OP, much like maisie_cat I don't like the look of MDF skirting boards either, so before buying them I'd make sure you're happy with it. There are definitely advantages to using MDF though, although there are also advantages to using real wood. For me the main disadvantage of MDF (besides the look) is I find they're easier to damage. You just need to decide what's better for your needs.

It's worth noting my real wood skirting boards were quite bent, the main disadvantage to real wood IMO. It took a bit of effort to straighten them out but now they're on the wall they look great.

I already have MDF skirting boards throughout the house! Actually the only place I have real wood is one spot where my builder couldn't get a good match so ended up using some scrap (it was similar but not perfect, but it's on an independent bit of wall between two doors) and I don't like the look of it at all. I much prefer the MDF.

FreeBear

Bendy_House said: And I'd give serious consideration to also mitreing the internal corners. Not the 'correct' way, but with a stable material like MDF, there's no reason I can think of why not.

With a scribed joint, you do not have to be millimetre perfect when cutting the skirting to length. Mitreing an internal corner, if the skirting is cut too short (which you will do), you end up with a nasty gap to fill.

Scribing looks to be difficult at first, but once you have done one joint, the rest are very easy to do. A scribed joint also allows for the skirting to expand/contract. Even MDF will move slightly with changes in temperature & humidity.

danrv

Bendy_House said:

Oh, another tip - get together a selection of heavy objects - bricks, paint tins, heavy books, etc, ideally things that are 'square', and use these to hold the lengths in place while the adhesive sets. 

That's how I've done my my lounge and kitchen diner skirting.
I have numorous old cartridge tins from the 40's full with nuts and bolts. I knew they'd be useful one day.
Heavy and square and ideal for holding 
MDF skirting in place while adhesive sets.
No nails or screws, just Instant Nails from Toolstation.

diystarter7

I've done MDF in all 5 bedrooms last year and most of the ground for the years before. I've also done real wood, 8 inch high skirting boards in another house of ours years ago. I'm like you a DIY guy.

Rarely I got a corner wrong, but be careful on a piece where one end is internal and other external etc. Have a small pice of wood to try out as I did and even a small sktech

As others said wall are not straight and not straigh horizontally and vertically. With smaller skirting, this is not a big problem on the verticals.

Don't forget some of the corners will be hidden. Rarely do corners meet 100% but a bit of adjusting the way you fit and filler makes it look good especially when you finish painting.

For the first time, I used Gun Grip type glue to fix the skirting and just rested heavy stuff in front of them for 24 hours worked great as I dont have a nail gun.

(A couple of the corners were not 100% even after filling but 80% but covered by furniture.

DIY, save your self a lot of money and at many times you can do a better job than the man you may have paid.


Good luck.

ps - get the mdf boards undercoated saves a lot of time.

diystarter7

PS: As corners are rarely at right angles and especially where one is internal and other external or vice-versa - I Had some carboard which I put up against the wall, cut into shape and copied that onto the skirting but I think you get a tool for that not sure what it is called.

will look it up and if I find it post it here

Mutton_Geoff

It's a fairly easy DIY job, my tip is to oversize the skirting (6" instead of 4") and make sure you leave a small gap (about 5-10mm at the bottom of the boards to allow the floor to move without popping the skirting off the wall. The gap will be hidden by your floor covering. Use (temporarily inserted) spacers to achieve this.

jennifernil

OH has replaced skirtings in 4 bedrooms at our daughter's house, all the door frames and internal facings too, in white oak, it looks lovely.  Only the walk in cupboards and one bathroom still have white paint inside.

The house had been partly done up using oak in the hallway, living rooms, kitchen and cloakroom, and new oak veneered doors, but inside the bedrooms and bathrooms it was still all white painted.

The materials used were good, but the workmanship very poor, so he has spent a lot of time improving the joins and corners of the skirtings.  They had used the scribing method, badly, some boards were too short.  He is a fan of mitres and used them in all the rooms he did, plus a couple of places where he had to fit new boards.

Just using glue to fix them in place, as they had done, was no use as several walls are far from straight.

Just over 4 years since he started doing stuff in her house, the list of jobs has got a bit shorter now!

greensalad

Mutton_Geoff said:

It's a fairly easy DIY job, my tip is to oversize the skirting (6" instead of 4") and make sure you leave a small gap (about 5-10mm at the bottom of the boards to allow the floor to move without popping the skirting off the wall. The gap will be hidden by your floor covering. Use (temporarily inserted) spacers to achieve this.

I wonder if I could use some plastic pieces I purchased for a laminate flooring expansion gap in this fashion... instead of putting them against the wall putting them against the floor to create an even expansion gap all around. Thanks for raising this point. The skirts when we took them off did indeed have a small gap between the base and the floor.

The skirting will be 130mm tall, which was the maximum we could do to ensure clearance of doors for some built-in cupboards, but low enough to go under the radiators. And also to cover the existing messy plaster area so we didn't have to do loads of filling.

Bendy_House

FreeBear said:

With a scribed joint, you do not have to be millimetre perfect when cutting the skirting to length. Mitreing an internal corner, if the skirting is cut too short (which you will do), you end up with a nasty gap to fill.

= 'easy'. Just correcting that for ye.

MDF moves far less than wood. Any gap will be straightforward to fill. Glue the mitres, then a small amount of filler - use the flat faces of the board either side as your guide when applying the filler - there will barely be any sanding required afterwards.

This is the OP's first time. Skirting is not an easy first job, but it is very doable with care - and possibly a big learning curve. Unless the OP has acknowledged DIY skills, to start of with scribing is a big ask, imo. Even if they mastered it - guess what, they'll likely never use that skill again