Skirting Boards: part 1

Starting a new job meant work on the house had inevitably slowed, so the mammoth task of fitting several hundred metres of skirting had to be done over a number of months, whenever time allowed. 

Most builders nowadays glue skirting boards in place with grab adhesives like Gripfill, a seemingly quick and easy solution, but one that wasn't going to work for us. We experimented by trying to glue a couple of lengths and were deeply unimpressed with the results. It was messy, expensive and horribly inaccurate.

Instead we decided to employ the same process as we'd used with the architraves, using ultra-thin, Lost-Tite screws which would allow us to pull the skirting tight against the walls. This was one advantage of using Fermacell; unlike conventional plaster the walls are extremely flat, so the boards should sit against them with no gaps and Fermacell also holds screws firmly without the need for wall plugs.  

 

Pictured below is the spare bedroom before the skirting:

And after:

The oak floorboards required an expansion gap to be left around the perimeter of the room, so adding the skirting finally tidied all that up. Another view of before...

...and after.

The skirting boards were ordered pre-primed and once we'd cut them to length, we painted all the sections with the first top coat. After that it was just a matter of screwing them tight to the wall and flat to the floor (not always easy - more on that later...)

We chose to use plain skirting rather than anything patterned or grooved, mainly because it suited the house design, though it also made life easier when joining the skirting, as inside corners could be butt-joined without the need for scribing or mitring. We still had to mitre the external corners though and usually pre-glued these for extra accuracy in alignment before fitting to the wall.

 

Once the boards had been trimmed and painted, we could lay them in place ready for fixing. As can be seen from the picture below, it was impossible to get the boards to fit without any gaps because no walls or floors are perfectly flat.  

Using the ultra-thin screws allowed us to get the skirting fixed really securely and pulled flush to the wall. After that we filled the gaps using the usual two layers of filler, coarse followed by fine...

... then a final coat of paint and the room's done.  

The tiled floors downstairs presented several different challenges to the wooden floors upstairs. The hall in particular proved rather tricky. Here it is before any skirting.

As before, we cut the boards down to length and mitred them using a chopsaw set up outside on the front doorstep. Once all the boards had been trimmed, we placed them against the walls to see how they would fit and made adjustments where necessary.

The added problem with the tiled floor was that it wasn't always perfectly level, which often left uneven gaps where the skirting met the floor. The tiling had not been done badly by any means - if it was out, it was only by a matter of millimetres - but we just had to get it right...

 

So in order to get some skirting boards to sit flat without any unsightly gaps, the boards first needed to be scribed with pencil to match the uneven contours of the tiles and then planed to shape. A real pain!

The external doors presented a few extra difficulties too...

The grey aluminium front door frame was narrower than the skirting so for neatness (or mild 'OCD'), we bevelled the boards on both sides of the door with a 45 degree angled edge using a router.

The hinge side presented an additional issue because the 'knuckles' of the hinge were protruding out.

Once again, we used the router and cut a curved groove in order to shape the skirting around the hinge and stop it from rubbing against the moving hinge parts. Here's the piece after it had been routed and re-painted.

Curved around the hinge above and with a 45 degree bevelled angle below. Quite a nice fit but what a faff!

Once we were satisfied with the fit, we could screw all the sections firmly to the wall using the Lost-Tite screws.

Once again, no matter how much care you take, the walls are never perfectly straight. When fitted the skirting boards have slight gaps, but such small areas are relatively easy to fill.

And this is it after filling and painting.

More skirting trickery was required around the cupboard under stairs.

Below is what it looked like before skirting.

Skirting cut to size and placed into position.

External mitred corners glued together and all pieces painted

Screwed to the wall. 

We cut an angle into the piece alongside the door in order to allow it to open fully.

Finally all gaps were filled and the skirting painted with a finished top coat of paint.

Same process on the other side of the cupboard

 

 

 

Screwed in place.

Holes filled.

Sanded down and painted.

To complete the run we needed to fit skirting to the cupboard door. We planed a few millimetres off the bottom edge so that there was no chance of it rubbing or sticking on the floor when it swings open. We then fixed it to the door with packers underneath so that it lined up perfectly with the top of the skirting boards on either side.

After being filled, rubbed down and painted...

...and swinging into action.

Maintenance and repairs

One of the frustrations of taking so long on the build is we've found ourselves having to do maintenance and repairs... on a house that we haven't even finished building yet.

The Cornish winters are not particularly cold, but are very wet and windy, and after a series of particularly bad storms, we found the balcony doors in the main bedroom had started to leak.

Despite trying everything to block off the rain, water still managed to get in and was starting to cause some damage to the oak flooring.

We tried everything to stop the leak. We covered everything in plastic, stuck waterproof tape both inside and out, wedged the doors tightly closed using wooden props, but no matter what we did, the rain still managed to seep in and the oak gradually got more and more damaged. After all our hard work laying the boards, it was pretty soul destroying to just stand by and watch the floor slowly getting wrecked. 





It seemed to be some kind of drainage issue; the rain was so relentless that it was filling up the bottom sill and then getting blown back every so often into the room. All the drainage holes and channels underneath the sills were clear, so this appeared to be some kind of manufacturing/installation flaw.

The floors were getting badly water-stained, but the worst issue was an area near the centre of the doors, where the oak had got so damp that it had begun to swell and warp causing a big lump to form.

It didn't take long before the oak had swelled and cracked so badly that it blocked the door from opening. We complained to the company who originally supplied the windows and they agreed to return and implement some (free) repairs (this mainly seemed to constitute drilling additional drainage holes inside the sills to prevent the rainwater from pooling).
 

Through the following weeks (and weeks) of stormy weather the water seemed to be staying outside, so once everything had completely dried out and we were absolutely certain that the doors were no longer leaking, we decided to try and do something about our mangled floor. 

First, in order to remove the water stains, we had to sand all the oak back down to the bare wood.

Removing the buckled section was a bit trickier. Our underfloor heating pipes run directly below the floor so we could not risk cutting through the full depth of the boards. Instead, we decided to try and remove just the top 4mm layer of oak. It was a delicate operation.

Underfloor heating requires the use of engineered oak (i.e., a thin layer of oak glued onto plywood for thermal stability) and this worked to our advantage, allowing us to cut away the damage without risking any punctures to the underfloor heating pipes.  
 

Once the oak layer had been carefully trimmed away from the plywood base using the multi-tool, we needed to cut a replacement slice of oak from one of our old off-cuts. (Luckily we keep a small stock of house spares, like floorboards and tiles, up in the loft in case of any damage).   
 

Cutting a slice off a new board and sanding it down to the correct height took a fair amount of time, but once it fitted in the gap perfectly, we could glue it firmly into place.
 

It was a messy job sanding in our bedroom and sawdust got absolutely everywhere, so the doors were left open as much as possible. 

Once all the sanding and repairs had been completed, all the affected boards (about a quarter of the room) needed to be re-oiled. 

Once two coats of oil were applied, it looked like new again. The repairs are not noticeable and even better, there were no discernible lines where the existing and newly-oiled sections overlapped. Hurrah! 

The elements were also playing havoc with the outside of the house. Here's how the house looked when we first finished the shell...   

... but five years on, those crisp white walls were tinged with green and brown algae stains all over that made the whole house look rather tired and grubby.

Being surrounded by trees is lovely but it does contribute to the growth of algae and lichens that really mess up the exterior.  

Again, here's how crisp and white it looked when first finished...

... compared to its rather shabby-looking appearance after several harsh Cornish seasons.

Rather than repainting the whole thing, we decided to test out some algae-killing chemicals. We tried to get the most eco-friendly one we could and applied it at a time of year when there weren't many insects around (we didn't want to inadvertently poison any birds that ate any sprayed flies or spiders).

We used a brush and sprayer and doused the front of the house. This type of chemical doesn't react immediately but is supposed to gradually remove the green algae over a number of months. We will see... 





Here's how it looked before its chemical bath...





... and by comparison, two months later. Not perfect but much, much better.