cutting in dodgy skimming and skirt

[walter111]

Stripped the wallpaper and had the stair walls skimmed (couldnt remove the skirting first as part of the stairs!) the previous owner had obviously had a bit of work done before before papering over, he had tough bonding mix and so could not easily have been taken off. Anyway after the skim its brought the plaster in line with the skirt in places. (Its 9 inch old detailed skirting, so there is a prounounced lip at the top - which is now partially or fully buried in places)

We want the walls and skirting different colours ideally. Will it just look odd and too hard to cleanly define you think, should i just stick to same colour

 

[roughcaster]

That's the only thing with a detailed skirting/architrave, if it's a thin detail at the top, then any skim coat etc will lose the detail. This is what i do very often. If you get some small thin packers, eg, bits of thin plastic, couple of mm thick,( milk carton stuff or similar) folded over once or twice, then using a rigid scraper, gently and carefuly prise the top of the skirting out a little, then slip the thin plastic packer down behind the skirting just enough to put it out of sight. Do that every 2 or 3 feet or so.Do it all round the room, then skim, and you will have more or less all of the detail showing along the top of the skirting etc. Do that on the architraves too, but be extra careful when your easing them out near the mitres. As i said, i've done it that way many times and it works.
Another thing that i think looks really terrible, is when people use thick tiles that stick out further than the tapered edged architrave, even worse than that, is when they finish with a cutting/cut edge.

 

[joe-90]

Go for white woodwork and then a neutral for the walls.

 

[roughcaster]

Best way Joe,, keeps it simple.