skirting board and architrave

I had to make ours. This old tenement flat has the old mouldings, and they are not available today, anywhere. So it was out with router and hand tools for a very relaxing week of sculpting wood.

I would say that there is still a place for making your own bespoke fixtures and fittings.

..

Almost mandatory if restoring old buildings. Door mouldings too.

With this sort of Victorian house - built from a sort of kit - the stone mouldings if they look the same tend to be identical across lots of London. But the woodwork was sourced locally so can be different in the same street of similar looking houses.

I had a similar problem with skirtings when removing the wall between the two ground floor rooms. Luckily had a local woodworking place with a spindle moulder who made up some cutters to a pattern. And then ran off some cheaply - it was just the top part which was difficult, and this was separate. Still got the cutters. The architrave was close enough to what's still available to allow total replacement round one door to look ok against another which was original.

It is a problem with older houses, for minor alterations I have had to make my own but for a major job I replace the whole lot in the room with off the shelf equivalents.

Nothing even remotely similar available for the skirting in some of the rooms in this Victorian house - it's 14" high.

I wonder what the origins were of having it so high. Do we ever wish ours were higher? Was it just because the materials were more readily available?

I think it was simply ostentation - it looks grand. Similar to high ceiling heights. Also, high skirting and high ceilings go well together proportionally - stick a 14" skirting in an 8' room and it is going to look very strange indeed, and the same with a 4" skirting in a 10'+ room.

Dave has an inch and a half more than me (but at least his is huge), but they cheated in mine and stuck it together from two planks, upper one with the pretty standard ogee on the top edge and a bead on the bottom, lower one with a bead on the upper edge, and then edge jointed.

Dunno - but it looks in proportion due to the high ceilings. There's no damp proof course in this house and the plaster stops at the skirting. So perhaps helps the bricks by ventilation?

Mine is in three bits. A fairly ornate moulding on the top - about 2" high. Plain wood of the same thickness below for about 4", then the lower part sits on top (proud) of that bit - and has an ogee on the top edge.

The rented flat I had quite close to here - part of a large detached house

- had skirtings made of concrete with a plaster facing.