Design question - looking for opinions

di11on

Hi again folks.

I know I'm posting a lot, but I have a lot of questions. It's my first time decorating my own house!

We have semi-solid wooden flooring and the previous owners of the house had installed wooden skirting which looks ok. The problem is that the door and door frame are painted with white gloss and I think that the mismatch between the white gloss door frame and the bare wooden skirting looks odd.

So the question is, should I paint the skirting white? Would white painted skirting against a semi-solid wood floor look odd or should I live with the wooden skirting and white door frames? The wooden flooring is quite dark coloured by the way.

Opinions?

Thanks

Di11on

miles teg

Personally I hate wood that's been painted white. I'm currently sanding door frames to match the laminate flooring. I'll tell you now that it takes a lot of effort and the place gets wrecked with dust. But despite all that, it's worth it.

Heinrich

miles teg wrote:

Personally I hate wood that's been painted white. I'm currently sanding door frames to match the laminate flooring. I'll tell you now that it takes a lot of effort and the place gets wrecked with dust. But despite all that, it's worth it.

Surely that's a question of taste! Sanding down red deal/spruce timber is a lot of work for very little effect. White woodwork will show up the doors and floors better. The all wood effect of knotty timber makes the room look like a log cabin

Granted, if you were using a hardwood then painting it would be a crime.




To each his own

miles teg

Heinrich wrote:

Surely that's a question of taste! Sanding down red deal/spruce timber is a lot of work for very little effect...

Of course it's a question of taste but the op asked for opinions and I gave mine. I did also say that it was a lot of effort but I think it's worth it.
I didn't go into details becasue the op was just asking opinions but I use a combination of scraping, nitromors and sanding. Each method has it's benifits and using a combination can reduce the effort involved a lot.

CJhaughey

You could white oil the wood in order to lighten it and stop it from darkening.
You will need white pigment and some danish/tung oil to mix together.

di11on

Yup... opinions are exactly what I'm after.

Because I've so much to do in the house, sanding the door frames is not a runner... so for me, it's a choice between living with wooden skirting and a white door frame, or painting the skirting white.

I'm leaning towards the white skirting... it's not hardwood... I don't think. The previous owners have done a horrible job of fitting the skirting actually (they didn't even cut 45 degree angles at the corners... offensive to the eye!) So I don't think it's much of a crime to paint over it! :-)

Heinrich

di11on wrote:

Yup... opinions are exactly what I'm after.

Because I've so much to do in the house, sanding the door frames is not a runner... so for me, it's a choice between living with wooden skirting and a white door frame, or painting the skirting white.

I'm leaning towards the white skirting... it's not hardwood... I don't think. The previous owners have done a horrible job of fitting the skirting actually (they didn't even cut 45 degree angles at the corners... offensive to the eye!) So I don't think it's much of a crime to paint over it! :-)

Fillers and a small spatula will hide a multitude. Then paint over .

FrankGrimes

I hate the appearance of pine in houses so I paint it with white satin. I have solid acacia (very like walnut, slightly darker) flooring and have white skirting alongside it and I think it looks very well. Only thing that would look better is possibly solid acacia skirtings but since these are not available and would be huge money, its painted pine for me. I also think dark floor with dark skirting and architraves would need very large, bright rooms, which I don't have.

If I was of the mindset to strip painted wood back to its original surface (as I did with our stairs to prep it before repainting it) I'd be using Klingstrip from http://www.stripperspaintremovers.com/ - best gear ever, and very little effort of abrasion involved.

Kashkai

I had oak plank flooring in the last house with pine skirting boards, architraves, and doors. It was waaaay too much wood. However, at the time (1998), it was all the rage to have as much wood on view as possible.

I'm re-doing my entire house at the moment and I'm going for oak doors and oak floors with white deal architraves and skirting boards which I plan to paint white as I think it'll show the doors/floors off to their best.

As the rest of the guys said, its all down to what you'd be happy to live with.

Best of luck.

di11on

Thanks guys... that's all really really helpful.

Expecially helpful is the photo posted by Heinrich... it really helps me visualise what the white skirting would look like against the wooden floor. Really appreciate that - thanks.

Think I'm leaning towards paiting the skirting white. Maybe I'll post some before and after pictures when I'm done!

Thanks again folks

oneillk

basic design, common practice

wood floor = white skirting, architrave and door

other = either white or left varnished