We are in the middle of our living room and dining room being decorated, which is very exciting! The walls are basically done, so it’s now time to move onto flooring. We’ve chosen a nice oak laminate and sorted out the skirting boards. There are a couple of ways to do skirting board with laminate, so here I discuss the pros and cons of these methods. 

Methods

Method 1

The first way is easiest if you lay the laminate flooring down first, (after underlay of course). Remember to leave a small gap between the laminate and the wall with some packing. This will allow for natural expansion and contraction.

Apply the skirting board to the wall in the desired way. I recommend using a grab adhesive. Make sure that the bottom of the skirting board is flush to the laminate flooring. This looks neat and you may not even need beading to finish the look.

However, if you want to take up the laminate flooring in the future, this will make it more difficult as we found out when ripping this up!

Method 2

My preferred method is to apply the skirting board to the wall first. Put down underlay before applying the laminate flooring . Make sure that there is a small gap between the skirting board and the laminate and use packing.

You will definitely need to use beading this way, but it makes it much easier if you want to change the flooring in the future. It is also easier in a way, as you don’t need to make sure the gap next to the laminate is narrower than the skirting board the whole way around.

Beading Tips

1. If you want to use beading the same colour as the laminate flooring, take a piece of it to the shop. Just because your flooring is ‘oak’ and a strip of beading says ‘oak’ doesn’t mean it’ll be a good colour match. It’s best to have an example of your laminate with you to colour match it to.
2. If you want to use white beading to match your white skirting boards, you don’t have to worry about the aforementioned tip. White beading is also much cheaper!
3. You can stick the beading to either the skirting board or floor using grab adhesive. The skirting board is probably easier.
4. If there’s a small gap between the beading and skirting board when it’s dry, that’s easily fixed. Simply get some white filler and go along the gap, running along it with your finger. The same applies for gaps between the skirting board and wall.

Types of skirting board

When I was looking around at skirting board, I was astonished to find out how many types there are. I’ve seen plain skirting board and the type that I have in my home (see above). However, there’s actually lots of different designs, many of which are more modern.

You can check out the above skirting boards and more at Skirting World.

There is also the choice of MDF or pine. The latter is better quality. However, be aware that it is more expensive!

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post with Skirting World As always, all views and opinions are honest and my own.