Wood flooring installation with no skirting board

We loved getting involved in the renovation of this beautiful period property on Cornwall’s south coast. Working with P Chapman Construction, we were tasked with designing, supplying, and fitting a new engineered oak floor in the client’s sitting room which contained uneven walls absent of skirting boards.

During the initial design phase, we worked closely with the client’s interior designer to match the wood flooring with the client’s tastes, whilst also considering the wider traditional farmhouse aesthetic within the property.

After careful consideration and sample testing, we opted for a random laying pattern with mixed-width boards and a naked oak finish, which gave the property a beautiful, naturally coloured hardwood floor, matching well with the vibrant colours of the sitting room.

Each project comes with a unique set of challenges, and in this case, extra care and attention needed to be taken when it came to cutting and laying the boards at the perimeter of the room.

Working in a period home often means having to navigate walls and features which aren’t perfectly square. In this project, it required working up against the beautiful, natural, and breathable Clayworks clay plaster walls within the property. A methodical approach was required to fit the flooring in a room that had several uneven walls with no skirting boards.

Installing a wood floor with no skirting boards is difficult, but not impossible. Skirting boards usually allow us to hide the small space traditionally required for expansion and contraction. Without this, we had to design the expansion within the field of the room, which required numerous precise cuts and no margin for error – highlighting the care and precision we put into all of our work.

The absence of skirting also meant that a cork edging was required to meet the floor to the wall; a task which required careful planning and sizing. The cork provided a clean edge and some further flexibility for expansion, ensuring the walls were not damaged by the hardwood.

The project resulted in a very happy client, thanks to the high-quality end product which created a seamless transition from a bold traditional style wall to a complementary hardwood oak floor, and the time, care, and professionalism which our craftsmen displayed as they navigated the challenges involved in this project.