Disappointed with skirting board finish

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My builder is making good a few rooms as we near the end of a Victorian Terrace refurb and I’m a bit disappointed with the way skirting boards have been fitted in certain areas.

The problem is we have original wood flooring which are uneven (in fact all walls are uneven too!), we like the original / non-perfect look of the boards and don't want them replaced but the joiner has attempted to follow this unevenness with the skirting to minimise gaps between the floorboard and skirting. However… this becomes really noticeable when it runs beneath perfectly level radiators:

http://bpkersey.com/images/skirting2.jpg

http://bpkersey.com/images/skirting1.jpg

He’s advised if he was to run a single piece of skirting along this wall – spirit-level straight – we’d end up with a gap at the far end of about 5mm between skirting and floorboard (and of course the 2 bits of skirting wouldn’t meet perfectly at the corner either).

Am i being too critical or is there a better way he could have approached this?? We don't want to lose the character of the place but if we're paying for a rebuff i want it to look finished properly.
 
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Personally I'd have hollow planed this from a long length.....ok it is a bit of a faff but it would look better than that! Hollow planing is where the board high spots are incorporated within the bottom edge of the skirting.
A small amount of faking has to be expected, I guess, especially at the ends but with time and care it can be improved.
John :)
 
Or for that matter scribed the bottom of the skirting to the floor, John? ;) Agreed, though, the joint is far too obvious and he could and should have done a bit better
 
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Or for that matter scribed the bottom of the skirting to the floor, John? ;) Agreed, though, the joint is far too obvious and he could and should have done a bit better

+1 for scribing the bottom of the boards.
 
I would run it level then all corners with meet perfectly , 5mm gap is of no consequence.
 
Shoulda scribed it to the floor with a jigsaw. it's hard but can be done well when taking care. Learnt that in like my first year as an apprentice.
 
This probably isn't approved practice, but when I had a similar issue fitting a length of skirting to a 16 foot wall, I fixed one end, then bore down on the other to create a very slight bow in the skirting, fixed that end, then fixed points in between. You can't really see the bow.

Cheers
Richard
 
This probably isn't approved practice, but when I had a similar issue fitting a length of skirting to a 16 foot wall, I fixed one end, then bore down on the other to create a very slight bow in the skirting, fixed that end, then fixed points in between. You can't really see the bow.
Whatever it takes (I was taught the technique as well), but surely it depends on whether or not there are other elements like the radiator which would make it obvious that the floor is not flat. To me the OPs floor looks a bit like a rolling sea and would have needed scribing
 
You can only see it now because you're looking for it
 
looking at it the OP meant a 50mm gap!

That's what I thought. Would a 50mm difference be too much to scribe; it would surely make the higher end look not tall enough from the floor, which would then leave a different gap between skirting and radiator between rooms (which would annoy me more).


A mate of mine is doing up a similar (unsquare and unflat) house and he's going to the effort or leveling ALL the floors...
 
On reflection, I think that once the room is decorated and furnished, and you're going about your life in it, you're not really going to pay enough attention to the skirting that it'll be an issue.

Cheers
Richard
 

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