hardwood flooring used as skirting board

[Darren D]

We are probably going to lay a hardwood floor in our living room. Homebase sell packs of solid "parawood" for around £12/m and this seems excellent value. We used it in our last house and it looked great.

The boards are 120cm x 16cm and are 15mm deep and I was wondering if they could be used to make skirting too? Obviously I'd need to rip off the tongues and grooves and round over the top (and possible route in some other interesting detail). The biggest problem I see is that I would need 2 or 3 joins for each wall to make a full length of skirting. Also I'd need to varnish the top and joins to match the existing finish on the rest of the board which might be awkward to get exactly right.

Obviously if it works, I get new skirting that is a perfect match for the floor for around £2/m.

Is this a crazy plan? If not, any thoughts or tips? Am I right in thinking that hardwood skirting usually costs hugely more than £2/m and so this effort will be worthwhile?

Darren

 

[JFC]

I wouldnt do it . You will always see the joints . I normally buy 150mm x 25mm PAR and mould it myself for hard wood skirtings and then oil it before fitting .

 

[wizer]

hmm, i think i'd do it actually. Not sure if seeing the gaps would particularly bother me.

Personal preference tho I guess.

 

[Anonymous]

Dont do it the joints will bug you, it would me!!!!

 

[Paul Chapman]

Why not work out where the furniture will go and where the joints will be. With a bit of luck they might be virtually hidden by the furniture :wink:

Paul

 

[Pecker]

IF you decide to go with the flooring as skirting (and I have done this myself at a customer request) do remember not to butt joint them. They should be joined on a verticle mitre - ie the mitre goes the thickness of the board. This will allow for some slight movement in the future.

Actually, to be honest I was very wary of doing the skirting using the flooring, but it didn't acually look too bad. Choose the lengths carefully so they all look reasonably the same , and as has been suggested, if possible get the joins behind furniture etc. You can scre the boards to the wall then use grain plugs to cover them, but I would recommend Gripfill or "Sticks Like". These allow a bit of movement.

regards
mark

 

[Darren D]

Interesting, seems about 50:50 so far. I think I'll do the obvious thing and waste a couple of boards to do one wall and see how it goes.

IF you decide to go with the flooring as skirting (and I have done this myself at a customer request) do remember not to butt joint them. They should be joined on a verticle mitre - ie the mitre goes the thickness of the board. This will allow for some slight movement in the future.

Ah, OK. I was planning to butt join and pocket screw them together from the back as I thought this would give me best chance of an invisible join. Are you talking about movement along the length? Or movement of the house?
Darren

 

[Paul Chapman]

When making furniture it is right that we should aim for perfection. However, when it comes to things like skirting, plaster coving and wallpapering, IMHO it's more about creating illusions rather than absolute perfection. Walls, floors and ceilings are never level/straight/flat etc and with things like skirting and coving the sheer length makes it difficult to work without joins.

I would say aim to make it look right rather than worry about perfection, and if you do that well enough I bet nobody will notice the fiddling and fudging you had to do :wink:

Paul

 

[Mcluma]

That is the general thing, nobody will see the work that has gone into it, they will only see the result, and if the result it good, the work is good.

 

[Pecker]

Darren I was always taught it was to allow for expansion along the length. I know it is usually minimal, but if you've got a 20 ft run with two joints in it and the boards move by much, it will "pop" off the wall.

If you look at any correctly fitted skirting it is rarely butt jointed.

mark