Renovation Project - How to make your own skirting boards

Renovation Project - How to make your own skirting boards

I have been away for a little while and apologise for neglecting the blog, but we have been very busy and the blog will be back up to date very soon.

We have our new windows in place, we have a floor in place now all we need is the skirting boards and the water pipes covering and the living and dining room are almost complete.

In France you can buy skirting boards but these are very expensive and not very good, many people actually import skirting boards from the UK, but this is not necessary, with the right tools and a little bit of knowledge (or if you have a John!) you can have wonderful skirting boards for very little money.

We have bought packs of floor boards, these are tongue and groove but John is able to adapt them so that they are exactly what we want.

The first aspect is to remove the tongue; this is trimmed down with the jigsaw and then planed to make the edge level.

Left like this they would not look very good, so next John uses his router (this is a high speed cutting blade that puts shapes on to edges of wood) we have chosen to have the edges squared and round, to look like traditional skirting boards.

This is reasonably easy to do when you have done it before, so do not be disheartened if you try and your first few pieces look a bit rubbish, have a practice on scrap wood.

Once we have all of the skirting boards shaped it is time to fix them to the wall, as we have a number of corners, we have to mitre the wood (this is cutting the wood to the correct angle, normally they should be 45 degrees, but as this is a very old house 45 degree angles were very rare and yes this does result in more swearing!) a top tip is to buy a good electric chop saw and learn how to use it. We have an Evolution Fury 3, this was the best we could find for the price as the blade will cut through almost anything, so if you find a nail in the wood it is not a problem.

Our next problem is the water pipes underneath the windows (we also have the water metre here) we decide to box them in with the skirting board and pieces of floor board, as the water meter cannot be moved.

We have been told that friends of friends are selling up and moving back to the UK but have some furniture for sale, we go to take a look and they are selling a fabulous dresser, we have to have it, but are not sure how we are going to get it to the house (its heavy!).

Our friend with the trailer comes to the rescue and he and John manage to get it into the trailer. Once in the house we realise that the engravings on the wood match our dining chairs, it was meant to be.

That night we sit and relax on our sofa’s watching a film with a glass of wine whilst the fire is burning and the room looks like a room.

We think back to a year ago when we were sat in a pile of rubble (well actually we were sat in rubble only a few weeks ago!) and can’t believe how far we have come. We never lost heart, as we knew it would come together at some point and that point is now getting ever closer!