Idea for skirting

[51]

Hi all (Davao and his ideas here)

Skirting in bathrooms.

I was unwilling to go beyond looking at pvc facia or torus skirting and I then turned down pvc so was stuck with torus.

The wall tiles near the floor are 20cm by 25cm so in my opinion would not look right with 5 or 6" skirting. I then discovered that I was short of tiles anyway so figured I would have to go with 9" torus to cover more wall.

9" torus looked very heavy in that sized room so then my pheeerr-naarm-inaal brain kicked in.

Arthur's Idea ... Take power saw and cut off rounded part of profile leaving the slightly concave incline that bridges the verical face to the rounded profile. This incline is better defined on 9" torus.

So the skirting I have fitted has a 10mm wide top edge with concave incline that is about 15mm wide and the whole thing is about 185mm high and looks just right.

Arthur

[Andy Hall]

Umm..

Why would anybody want PVC skirtings anywhere in a house?

-- or are you talking about softwood torus? If so, that wouldn't be talking bull...

[meow2222]

so it can get scratched and scraped, become impossible to clean, and generally look like crap. Why else?

The good news for the OP is it can be gloss painted.

NT

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

What a waste of torus.

Do you have a router per chance? plain piece of wood would have been cheaper and any profile cut with router.

[51]

I didn't think of the cut until after I'd bought the skirting.

Arthur

[Stuart Noble]

Skirting doesn't belong in a tiled bathroom at all IMO

[51]

A tiled skirting is a good idea for solid floors or floors that will never need to be raised to access plumbing.

Arthur

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes, I did that in both my kitchen and bathroom. I made the upstanding tile faces level with the plaster finish too, so the skirting doesn't stick out. I really like the effect, and many people have commented on how start it looks, besides the convenience of not having to cut anything to fit round the skirting.

[Andy Hall]

Did you have any concerns about possible damage during cleaning operations - e.g. vacuum cleaner etc.?

What types of tile did you use and what is behind them? How high?

I'm having a similar debate at the moment for my cloakroom project. One wall will be ply (covering wall mount WC frame, while the others will be plasterboard. I am concerned about tile material choice and the possibility of crushing of the plasterboard. I suppose at floor level, the plates for the stud wall can be made higher to provide really solid support.

[Andrew Gabriel]

start = smart ;-)

Not at all -- they are the same ceramic floor files which are on the floor, not wall tiles.

The floor is all done with 200mm x 200mm ceramic tiles. I cut them in half to create two skirting tiles (although in some cases they had to be slightly offset from 'half', as the floor isn't perfectly level). They all back on to brick walls. The floor is solid (well, screed, over old quarry tiles, probably directly on earth, but well trodden for 100 years).

Yes. It would be difficult if you wanted to make the tile skirting flush fitting rather than surface mounted in the case of using plasterboard. My walls were all conventionally plastered, and all reskimmed at least once on top of that, so the plaster thickness was substantial, ample to flush mount a tile with plenty of tile cement.

I was slightly concerned about the tile cement possibly wicking up moisture from the poorly dampproofed floor into the plaster above, so the tile adhesive was applied to the top and bottom of the skirting tiles with a gap between. In theory this makes the tiles more vulnerable to breaking on impact in the centre, but none have so far. No damp has appeared, so I don't know if this has been effective or if I need not have worried about it.

[Andy Hall]

OK, Andrew

All makes sense. Thanks for that.

Andy

[Christian McArdle]

That's a bit of a sweeping statement!

When I did the bathroom in my last house, it had skirting, tiles, tile dado, different tiles and coving. It looks really good. I was a bit unsure of the coving and skirting before I installed them, and very glad afterwards. They really improved the look of the room.

Christian.

[Stuart Noble]

Tiles usually equals condensation, which runs down and hits the skirting. IMO it isn't practical which is essentially why it doesn't look right either.

[Christian McArdle]

If you have enough condensation in your bathroom that visible water appears on the walls, then you need to sort out the ventilation.

If you have paint on your wood that can't cope with a little bit of water, then you need to sort out your paint.

I much prefer the look with the skirting and coving. I wasn't sure I would. Now that I've seen both methods, having the tiling go down to the floor just looks cheap.

Christian.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

It doesn't look cheap...it looks nasty

[Glide]