I seem to find fitting skirting boards one of the most difficult jobs. I've just been doing a bedroom in one of our houses are it's just soooo frustrating.
House is 150 years old, brick construction with old crumbly lime mortar. Plaster straight onto brick. Walls are all over the place as you might expect.
Now I've been using MDF skirting and have been fixing using screws and plugs. It's fine when it works, the screws pull the skirting tight against the wall.....however, 40% of the time I drill into mortar. It's impossible to avoid and there's zero chance of a plug fixing into the mortar. It's also impossible to see where the mortar lines are because the plaster is to the floorboards.
Now, I'm thinking there's gotta be a better way to do this. I have lots of holes to fill in the skirting already, good job it's going to be painted white!
So what is better method with this type of wall?
- Pre drill and use masonry nails? I would still have the same problem of hitting mortar
- Use adhesive. Now this would be fine if the wall were flat but like I said it's all over the place and therefore using pinkgrip etc is very hard because it's nigh on impossible to get the skirting tight to the wall in all places.
Previously when I stuck skirting on I would screw a battern into the floorboards and then use expanding clamps to press the skirting against the wall until the adhesive sets. The problem with this is I'd need a lot of clamps AND also what if they floor had been tiled? I couldn't exactly use batterns in this same way.
So when you have problem walls like, what exactly is the best way of fitting skirting boards?
House is 150 years old, brick construction with old crumbly lime mortar. Plaster straight onto brick. Walls are all over the place as you might expect.
Now I've been using MDF skirting and have been fixing using screws and plugs. It's fine when it works, the screws pull the skirting tight against the wall.....however, 40% of the time I drill into mortar. It's impossible to avoid and there's zero chance of a plug fixing into the mortar. It's also impossible to see where the mortar lines are because the plaster is to the floorboards.
Now, I'm thinking there's gotta be a better way to do this. I have lots of holes to fill in the skirting already, good job it's going to be painted white!
So what is better method with this type of wall?
- Pre drill and use masonry nails? I would still have the same problem of hitting mortar
- Use adhesive. Now this would be fine if the wall were flat but like I said it's all over the place and therefore using pinkgrip etc is very hard because it's nigh on impossible to get the skirting tight to the wall in all places.
Previously when I stuck skirting on I would screw a battern into the floorboards and then use expanding clamps to press the skirting against the wall until the adhesive sets. The problem with this is I'd need a lot of clamps AND also what if they floor had been tiled? I couldn't exactly use batterns in this same way.
So when you have problem walls like, what exactly is the best way of fitting skirting boards?