A nailed-down wood floor and hollow skirting boards to hide the services
The project at a glance
- The floor
- Solid sweet chestnut boards, nailed down, traditional installation
- The constraint
- Services that could run neither through the ceiling nor through partitions
- The solution
- Sweet chestnut hollow skirting boards, 45° mitre cuts
- The requirement
- Every corner section scribed one by one against uneven walls
Solid sweet chestnut, traditional installation
Upstairs in this long-abandoned part of the farmhouse, now an annexe flat, the floor is solid sweet chestnut with beautiful grain, the old way onto the joists. So far, a beautiful floor. The real story of this project plays out at the foot of the walls.
The skirting that carries the services
In this heavy renovation with massive walls, the client wanted the services to run neither through the ceiling below, nor through partitions that do not exist. The solution: assembled as corner sections with 45° mitre cuts, made from the same sweet chestnut as the floor. And since nothing is straight in these walls, each corner section was one by one against the wall: the wood hugs every bump, and the joint is then finished with decorator's acrylic, so there is not a single gap between the skirting and the wall. In the overview at the bottom of the page, you can also spot the top of the staircase fitted straight afterwards.
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See my reviewsThe questions I'm often asked
Nailed, glued or floating installation, which one to choose? Is sweet chestnut a good flooring wood? How do you hide services without chasing walls or adding a false ceiling?
I have practical answers to all of that, and two articles to dig deeper: floating, glued or nailed installation and solid, engineered or laminate flooring. And for your own situation, call me: the quote is free.
A wood floor to lay in a house where nothing is straight?
Traditional installation, finishes fitted to old walls, discreet technical solutions: I lay wood floors that last. A precise, free quote. I speak English, so feel free to call or write in English.
