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Come what may you're going to end up having to make a number of 'scribed' cuts on all the boards that meet the perimeter walls simply to get a reasonably close, <10mm, fit all round and careful planning of the board orientation and layout can be vitally important. I had the devils own job here when I was planning the new floors for the 'East Wing' because the rooms are trapezeoidal rather than square or rectangular and it was essential that I ensured there was enough 'meat' left on the boards that meet the perimeter walls to get a secure fix to the joists/sub-floor. You have to remember also that you must leave an expansion gap all round the perimeter to avoid buckling/rippling - the boards themselves will expand and contract as conditions in the house change.
It's this expansion gap that drives the need for a skirting board of some kind. Most of these are designed to be fixed to the walls and, in effect, they float above the floor unaffected by any expansion of the boards. However, such skirting does not play well with irregularly shaped walls such as yours and a different approach is needed. One of these, and the least attractive to my mind, is to accept the inevitable and fit the skirting to the wall as normal and then inject a filler behind it to fill the gaps. The far better approach in my book is based on using a thin, circa 5mm but at most 10mm, moulding laid flat on its back and scribed/cut to meet the walls profile and fixed above an off-cut of the flooring timber which is not connected to the main floorboards around the perimeter - the expansion gap is left between the off-cut and the floorboards. The diagram below may help to explain better. Note - noggins may be needed between the joists to provide a base for the off-cut on the reciprocal wall.
It's this expansion gap that drives the need for a skirting board of some kind. Most of these are designed to be fixed to the walls and, in effect, they float above the floor unaffected by any expansion of the boards. However, such skirting does not play well with irregularly shaped walls such as yours and a different approach is needed. One of these, and the least attractive to my mind, is to accept the inevitable and fit the skirting to the wall as normal and then inject a filler behind it to fill the gaps. The far better approach in my book is based on using a thin, circa 5mm but at most 10mm, moulding laid flat on its back and scribed/cut to meet the walls profile and fixed above an off-cut of the flooring timber which is not connected to the main floorboards around the perimeter - the expansion gap is left between the off-cut and the floorboards. The diagram below may help to explain better. Note - noggins may be needed between the joists to provide a base for the off-cut on the reciprocal wall.
Does “don’t do it” count as a thought?
Thanks for this mate, the floorboards are already laid (we did that a couple years back now). But your diagram solution is definitely an interesting option and seems doable. My wife is handy with all the “scribing” stuff and I’m handy with the jigsaw. Do you have any pictures of that solution implemented? I assume the moulding should probably match the wood flooring as opposed to being painted?
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Lol yes definitely, do you have any alternatives to suggest? If I try to force straight skirting board onto this wall I will either have 2 or even 3 cm gaps in places between the skirting board and the finished plaster surface, or the skirting board itself will follow the contours of the wall and look like bendy plastic bizarreness.Does “don’t do it” count as a thought?
Depending how agricultural you are prepared to get and assuming you are painting the skirting:
1) Use a chisel to remove the worst of the bumpy spots along the top 2 inches of where you will fix your skirting.
2) Fix a 1” x 2” batten to the wall at the height of the top of the skirting (i.e. where you have just merrily been chiselling) that will flex a bit and “soak up” some of the remaining wonkiness
3) Fix your skirting to the batten using countersunk screws so you can tighten or loosen the fixings to pull the skirting straight.
4) Use a flexible caulk or similar to fill and gaps in the top
5) Use wooden plugs (or filler) to fill the screw holes
6) Slap paint on it to cover your non-period compliant sins
1) Use a chisel to remove the worst of the bumpy spots along the top 2 inches of where you will fix your skirting.
2) Fix a 1” x 2” batten to the wall at the height of the top of the skirting (i.e. where you have just merrily been chiselling) that will flex a bit and “soak up” some of the remaining wonkiness
3) Fix your skirting to the batten using countersunk screws so you can tighten or loosen the fixings to pull the skirting straight.
4) Use a flexible caulk or similar to fill and gaps in the top
5) Use wooden plugs (or filler) to fill the screw holes
6) Slap paint on it to cover your non-period compliant sins
Ah yeah that would’ve been clever. Is that the way they would’ve done it 200 years ago? Or did they just not care about skirting on old stone cottages?
No idea how historically accurate it is, the idea was given to me by an eyewateringly expensive heritage lime plasterer who came to quote once, they said they always battened top and bottom for skirting and cornice as it gave them a good depth guide for getting the plaster flat-ish and make fixing skirting and mouldings much easier.
I couldn’t afford to use them but I did swipe their idea when I came to do it myself and have done it in every wall I have directly plastered onto since.
Don’t have any photos on this device as it was a while back but sure you get the idea
I couldn’t afford to use them but I did swipe their idea when I came to do it myself and have done it in every wall I have directly plastered onto since.
Don’t have any photos on this device as it was a while back but sure you get the idea
Yeah makes sense. Do we actually know how edges between floorboards and rough stone walls (plastered or not) would’ve been finished historically?
My understanding was pre-Victorian times it would have just been plastered straight down to the floorboards.
If the internet is to be believed - skirting started as a way for rich people to hind potentially poor finishes at the bottom of walls and thus make their houses look grander.
I guess if you could afford hire an expensive carpenter just to put nice ornate hand carved bits of wood at the bottom of your walls it was a pretty good way of showing off
If the internet is to be believed - skirting started as a way for rich people to hind potentially poor finishes at the bottom of walls and thus make their houses look grander.
I guess if you could afford hire an expensive carpenter just to put nice ornate hand carved bits of wood at the bottom of your walls it was a pretty good way of showing off
I can’t help too much - all my floors were added to the barn about 400 and a bit years ago. As they didn’t chose to use the rails to pick up the floor joists as a plate and disturbing the infill, instead pegging bearers onto said rails, for the joists. I suppose it means that I effectively have skirting as part of the original timber frame and floor boards don’t meet line timber panel infills… the internal historic partition was built with a lower plate over the existing boards, so again avoided this challenge! Maybe there was method to their madness…
eezageeza
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Basically, follow A Twigs method, but use a smaller batten (25mm square-ish?) scribe that to the wall at the height of the top of the skirting, fix skirting to that....and you'd end up with what looks like very thick skirting, scribed beautifully to the wall.
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With the floor already down that kinda precludes my offering - you'd have to lift all the boards touching the perimeter walls to cut them to accommodate the cut-off and expansion gap. That may be easy enough beside the length of the floor planks but a real bugger with the ends of the boards. You might consider then using the adhesive employed when fitting engineered boards to solid floors to fix the moulding to the floor edges rather than nailing them. It's reasonably flexible and strong but can be cleaned off the back and board surface if it ever parts company with the floorboards.
Yes, the mouldings should be of the same wood type as the floor BUT as these mouldings would be laid in almost direct contact with the stones of your walls you would be wise to treat the backs and scribed sides with a suitable varnish to resist damp penetration.
CliffordPope
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Skirting is surely only an option if the wall is reasonably flat? I'd define "flat" in this instance as meaning as long as the thinner section where it curves at the to is still proud of the skirting, then it counts as flat enough. But if the woodwork has to dip below the wobbles in the plasterwork then it just looks silly.
I can't see that it matters having the plaster running right down to the floor. Obviously the edge board has to be shaped to fit the wall profile.
I'm presuming an old house, or perhaps a suitably rustic one. I don't think little peasant cottages in the eighteenth century had skirting boards?
You could of course paint a border if you liked, or even do a trompe-l'oeil skirting board!
I can't see that it matters having the plaster running right down to the floor. Obviously the edge board has to be shaped to fit the wall profile.
I'm presuming an old house, or perhaps a suitably rustic one. I don't think little peasant cottages in the eighteenth century had skirting boards?
You could of course paint a border if you liked, or even do a trompe-l'oeil skirting board!
Crazy! We are literally starting this stage today and as I knew it would in the end, my rushed decision not ti put in any timber to plaster down onto is now coming back to haunt me!
Interesting ideas here, I like the idea to retro fit a batten by chisselling away some so the new line plaster
The flat skirting ( normal
Timber my partner got and we jsut routed an edge on) is thicker than I imagined we’d use and won’t bend at all, so also have gaps of about 2-3 cm,
Was planning to fill with either lime, casein filler or rope? When it’s such a thick gap but maybe chisellling out plaster is. Better iption
Downstairs we made the mistake of plastering first and laying slate slabs last, but now I’m thinking we won’t bother with skirting and I’ll just “touch up” the last few inches of wall with line render onto the slabs !
Interesting ideas here, I like the idea to retro fit a batten by chisselling away some so the new line plaster
The flat skirting ( normal
Timber my partner got and we jsut routed an edge on) is thicker than I imagined we’d use and won’t bend at all, so also have gaps of about 2-3 cm,
Was planning to fill with either lime, casein filler or rope? When it’s such a thick gap but maybe chisellling out plaster is. Better iption
Downstairs we made the mistake of plastering first and laying slate slabs last, but now I’m thinking we won’t bother with skirting and I’ll just “touch up” the last few inches of wall with line render onto the slabs !
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Simplest, and cleanest, method to remove unwanted plaster to allow a closer fit of the batten, or the skirting itself, is to cut the plaster using a multi-tool saw blade using the top edge of the board as a guide. Saves a lot of grief re-plastering bits you didn't intend chiseling out in the first place.