Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Skirting boards on a high
I spent the last two days fitting all the skirting boards upstairs in the gite. Took a break from the kitchen fitting as the next task is to cut the hole in the worktop for the sink, and it's a bit scary. Procrastination is my middle name :-)
Instead of wooden skirting board Caroline bought MDF skirting boards with a light oak finish to match the flooring upstairs in the gite. They have a much better finish than wood and it saves the trouble of sanding, staining, etc. The only downside is that the mitres in the corners have to be cut perfect because you can't really fill any gaps and paint/stain over them. The floor was a bit lumpy in places it I had to scribe the bottoms of the skirting boards to get them to fit snugly against the floor. It's the first time I've had to get my spokeshave out for a few years. Very handy tool. I wish I'd spent more time in the beginning getting the floor flatter, as I blogged before, it really pays to be attentive to getting everything square and level in the long run.
Because the skirting boards have a 'plastic' oak veneer you can't really screw the boards to the wall and fill the holes, so I've been using a contact adhesive ' aka Evo-Stik' (colle néoprène en francais) in a tube like bathroom silicon and applied with a gun as a couple of beads to the back of the skirting board. The skirting board is then pressed into position and removed. After waiting about 15 minutes the glue is dry and the board is pushed into place and fixed solid.
I did notice that yesterday afternoon I kept making lots of silly mistakes, like cutting mitres the wrong way and forgetting measurements. How can you forget a measurement in the three foot walk from the wall to the mitre saw! I put it down to tireness or a lack of sugar at first but it transpired that I was as high as a kite from the glue fumes. Drugged and foggy. Now I know why that say 'use in a well ventilated area' on the tube.
| 6:15:06 PM
Skirting boards on a high
