Skirting board painting in Cambridge
Skirting board painting looks simple until you add up the metres. A typical room has skirting on every wall, plus architraves, a window board and perhaps a picture or dado rail, and every length runs along a floor that needs protecting. Our decorators take on this woodwork painting as a job in its own right, when the walls are fine but the trim is chipped and scuffed, or as part of a full room.
Graham visits first to see what's there: how many coats of old gloss the skirting already carries, whether it's softwood or MDF, and what flooring sits beside it. It all comes under our woodwork painting and staining service.
Why skirtings look tired, and the preparation that fixes it
Skirtings get kicked, bumped by hoovers and furniture, and they gather dust along the top edge. Old gloss is also too shiny for new paint to grip. So each length is washed down, then keyed with a Mirka dust-free sander, which also takes out drips and brush marks left by earlier painters.
The gap along the top, where the skirting meets the wall, is filled with a flexible decorator's filler so the line reads straight once painted. Dents are filled and sanded flush, and nail holes stopped. One customer, whose room was two rooms knocked into one, told us on Checkatrade that our decorator had “filled and smoothed gaps in walls and skirting boards” as part of the job.
Glossing over old oil-based paint
Glossing still means a hard, high-shine finish to most people, and many period houses look right with it. The question we're asked most is whether you can go over old oil-based gloss with water-based paint. You can, but not straight on: the old surface has to be cleaned and keyed, and a bonding primer used, or the new coat can peel away like a skin.
Satin and eggshell suit skirtings well too, if you'd like less shine. In a whole-house renovation, our carpenter fitted new skirting boards once the old fitted wardrobes were out, and the decorators then finished the woodwork in Tikkurila white satinwood, which takes knocks without the full shine of gloss.
New MDF and pine skirting
New boards need different handling from old ones. Pine is absorbent and its knots can bleed through, so it's primed and the knots sealed before anything else. Pre-primed MDF only needs a light sand, but every cut end and mitre is bare fibre that soaks up paint, so those are sealed separately or they show as rough patches.
Ideally, new skirting is painted after it's fixed, filled and caulked, so nail holes and joints disappear under the finish.
Protecting floors and carpets along the skirting
The bottom edge of a skirting is where careless work shows. On wooden floors and tiles we run low-tack tape along the boards. On carpet, the pile is pressed down and taped back from the skirting so the brush can reach the bottom edge without touching the fibres, and the tape comes off before the paint fully hardens to leave a clean line.
If you're having new carpet or flooring fitted, the best order is usually to paint the skirtings first and have the fitter come afterwards. If the flooring is already down, tell Graham and the extra masking is allowed for.
Architraves, rails and the rest of the trim
Woodwork painting covers more than skirting. Architraves, dado and picture rails, window boards, boxed-in pipes and cupboard fronts are usually done in the same visit, so the whole room's trim matches in colour and sheen. Doors have their own page on painting internal doors. For outside timber, see exterior window painting and soffits and fascias.
Deep moulded skirtings in older houses can hide early layers of lead paint if the woodwork predates the 1960s. A simple test before sanding settles the question, and lead paint is only prepared with wet or low-dust methods, never sanded dry.
What sets the price for woodwork painting
- The total length of skirting, and how many rooms are included
- Tall moulded Victorian skirtings compared with plain modern boards
- Architraves, rails, window boards and doors added in
- How much filling, sanding or stripping the old paint needs
- Colour changes, such as white to a dark trim, that need extra coats
- Furniture to move and carpets to protect
After the visit
Graham measures it all and sends a written quotation listing exactly which woodwork is included.
Getting your skirtings booked in
Ring, WhatsApp or send the form, and Graham will arrange a visit. It helps to know which rooms you want done and whether new flooring is planned. The quotation normally comes by email, and Belinda books the dates.
Plenty of owners have the skirtings and trim refreshed before selling or between tenancies, and our landlord decorating service is set up for that. At the end we look along every length with you, and you don't pay until you're happy with the finished work.
