New skirting boards after Wooden Floors

decbuck

I am laying wookdend floors and am going to replace all teh skirting baords.


The current ones are white gloss, but I am putting maple floor down. Will I got with the natural colour skirting or will I go with the gloss again.

Has anyone done this and what would they recommend?

ps. The door surrounds will remain white gloss and the doors are all white gloss

Many thanks.

Borzoi

If the doors and architraves are staying white - stick with the white skirting. In fact you could save a lot of bother by leaving the existing skirting on, and just putting an edging strip to cover the expansion gap. Just a suggestion mind!

Samson

Go with painting the new skirting white. Unless the skirting matches the floor, it just won't look right. When I installed my first hardwood floor I varnished the skirting and was never really happy with it, so subsequently painted it white.

I disagree with Borzoi about using beading. Whilst it is certainly handy, installing new skirting gives a much better finish.
Lengths of skirting board are cheap.

Hagar

I find in situations like this its usually best to do exactly what the wife says.

But I she was out and I thought I could could get it done before she came back... I would go for white gloss because varnished skirtings will never match the maple and a good contrast is better than a bad match.

Lex Luthor

I have to agree with Borzoi also. Unless you have someone to remove and fit the new skirtings, I'd leave them on. It's a big enough job to replace the skirtings themselves.
Samson, while it is more aesthetically pleasing to replace them, I've done it once and it took ages. Unless the carpenter will do them for you, I'd leave them.

If you get white scotias to match the existing skirtings, they should look ok. Leave at least 10mm gap between the floor boards and skirting cos if you don't and when the floor expands it will push against the bottom of the skirting and a gap will appear all along the top.