Painting skirting boards

DannyW

DannyW

DannyW

Man of Honour
Joined
31 Dec 2005
Posts
4,869
Location
England
Hi I've just bought an house and the skirting boards look like they been painted about 50 times, they are going to need sanding back to the bare wood and repainting

Just wondering, what is the best type of electric sander for this job? I was thinking a belt sander? I already have a small detail sander for doing small bits and corners
 
Pro tip

Paint them fully in the 5m lengths on tressels or chippy horses and you'll get a great finish with some touching up once cut and stuck.

You can get some great MDF profiles now
 
Rip em out and replace. Did mine in no time at all just used a £45ish mitre saw from b&q and chopped at 45 degrees then grip filled to wall. Used a bit of caulking across the top to seal them.

No job worse than sanding.
 
maccapacca said:
Pull them off and fit new ones.

You'll be there for weeks
Click to expand...

This.

Though getting them off might be a pain... took me hours because the previous people used massive nails that went into external brickwork and rusted at the tip AND they used adhesive....
 
If you're in a period house and they are original, strip them. Heat gun and patience.

If not, fit new skirting and archtrave, nail and gripfill. Bit of deckies caulk and a good few coats of paint (assuming you just want simple painted trim, if you're going hardwood get a carpenter to fit as you need it to be scribed and mitred flawlessly)
 
pitchfork said:
If you're in a period house and they are original, strip them. Heat gun and patience.

If not, fit new skirting and archtrave, nail and gripfill. Bit of deckies caulk and a good few coats of paint (assuming you just want simple painted trim, if you're going hardwood get a carpenter to fit as you need it to be scribed and mitred flawlessly)
Click to expand...

This you can't buy wnything new that looks as nice as proper period skirting especially if it is of the very tall variety, also most victorian houses are not plastered behind the skirting so fitting new is a pain in the next as you have to sort out the correct spacers/packing.

New house rip it off and chuck on new stuff.
 
pitchfork said:
If you're in a period house and they are original, strip them. Heat gun and patience.
Click to expand...

You need to be careful stripping back the paint, especially if peeps have applied coat on top of coat, as old paint may contain lead.

And the same caution applies to old wallpaper & even old paint, I stripped a house many years ago, ended up with arsenic poisoning.
 
Last edited:
Nightglow said:
You need to be careful stripping back the paint, especially if peeps have applied coat on top of coat, as old paint may contain lead.

And the same caution applies to old wallpaper & even old paint, I stripped a house many years ago, ended up with arsenic poisoning.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it goes without saying, when working with old houses PPE is a must.

It does depress me when some people just bin period stuff, it's so much nicer than the cheap ikea style tat people call decor.
 
pitchfork said:
It does depress me when some people just bin period stuff, it's so much nicer than the cheap ikea style tat people call decor.
Click to expand...

Have to agree, if you saw what was burnt 20-30 years ago, it was shocking.
If I knew then what I know now, I would have stashed a lot of stuff away, especially metalware like knockers, hinges,brackets, letterboxes, etc.
 
Last edited:
If everyone saved it all it wouldn't be worth anything or popular.

My father in the 70's was refurbishing tower blocks and smashing out traditional cast iron baths with sledgehammers hundreds of them. However you can't really compare traditional stuff to Ikea when there is perfectly adequate reproduction profiles out there that look the same.

http://skirtingboardsdirect.com/company.asp?ID=69
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom