It’s now been almost 2 and a half years since we moved into our renovation project and ‘forever home’ here in SE London. Whilst progress is slow, it is thorough and I’ve discovered an inner perfectionist that has never materialised at any previous point in my life. My Mum laughs at how particular I can be about home projects and it is true that no-one is ever going to walk into our home and say “wow, great banisters”. The problem is that I know, I see every crack, every imperfection and whilst I reluctantly acknowledge that being a 1930’s house means there always be some element of age which we can’t do anything about, there’s so much that’s higgledy-piggledy I wonder if previous owners made updates wearing blindfolds.
We have a number of projects ongoing, one of which is replacing most of our floors. Apart from the hallway and dining room which is laminate, the rest of the house is carpeted and aside from being in awful condition, it’s not the easiest to keep clean and hygenic especially with Maddie and hopefully a cat to join her very soon. We’re painstakingly working our way round and working one room at a time and so far have done our 4th bedroom which we’ve converted into a home office, and our third bedroom which is about half-way through its overhaul. What we’ve noticed as we’ve gone round the rooms is that our skirting is different in just about every room and as you can imagine, this doesn’t sit well with my *mild* OCD.
I’m sure it’s the kind of thing that very few people would even notice but as committed as we are to replacing the floors, we’ve decided to go full throttle and upgrade all the skirting too which has been no mean feat. Back in the day, skirting was secured to walls in such a way as to never come off and although we’ve finally worked out a technique to remove it, it comes at a cost and generally pulls much of the wall away with it. By contrast, our top floor which was converted into a bedroom and en-suite by the previous owners less than 10 years ago has skirting which is practically falling off the wall itself. The advantage to taking the skirting off is that when you fit the floor it will be flush to the wall and has a neater and more professional finish, it is a big and messy job but the end result is worth it.
There are so many designs of mdf skirting on the market and I can honestly say I had no idea just how many there were. We have however decided to keep it simple and modern and have opted for a style called ‘bullnose’ without any detailing or patterns. It might not be for everyone but works really well for us – we do have a period home up to a point but we’re trying to mix elements of the modern in to our decor and make life easier in the process – I couldn’t help thinking how much dust may gather in the more intricate designs. So far it’s proved to be a good choice, our office floor was finished two years ago and looks as good as new. If only we were nearing the end of this project rather than still so close to the beginning…
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I would notice this too!!! It was like this in the first house Paul and I bought together and it drove me crazy. I like consistency. My other bugbear is too many different colour woods in the same room. It makes my eyes sore.