Refurbishing Bedroom

[lizard89769]

Hi,

I have very recently purchased a house and I want to begin my DIY adventure refurbishing / decorating one of the the bedrooms.

The main thing I am not sure what to do about at the moment is the gaps between the skirting board and the floorboards which varies from 0 to 2cm around the rooms.

I can see the bottom of the skirting boards are not flat for some reason, I can't work out why and am hoping it isn't caused by some kind of rodent/insect infestation, just that the person who installed them in the first place bodged the job a bit, i.e used some dodgy wood and didn't stick them on in the right positions... I understand this may be wishful thinking though !

I am also concerned that the floorboards underneath are not level and may need levelling somehow, they look pretty old to me. Also, there are boarded up fireplaces in both the rooms, but for some reason they left the hearth stones behind which are not flush with the floorboards.

There is also some slight structural movement/bulging of one exterior wall (we are end of terrace) where the house has sunk into the ground a bit, which the structural engineer said was common for a late 1800's house and nothing to panic about but might make levelling the floorboards quite tricky ?

I would also like to install some kind of cheap soundproofing and was also considering thermal insulation under the floorboards but have decided it may well not be worth lifting the floorboards for.

Here is my initial plan, please don't laugh if I am way off ! ;

1. Remove the old skirting boards

2. Remove the old hearth stone

3. Replace where the hearth stone is with new floorboards and level and nail down any other loose floor boards using a spirit level, nails and hammer.

4. Replace the old power sockets with new plates/covers that sit flush against the wall, think I may have to remove some more of the wall where they are currently positioned to fit them in further
not sure why they didn't do this when the old ones were fitted, hope it wasn't for an important reason.

5. Cut, paint and stick on new skirting boards

6. Paint the walls

7. Lay down sound proof underlay and call someone in to fit the carpet underlay and carpet over the top


So a few questions :

1.) Are there any problems with my plan ? Am I way off what needs doing ?

2.) Would it be worth putting insulation under the floorbaords, or should I just leave it ?

3.) Do I need to take extra steps to make the soundproofing more effective / worth the effort ? It's to cut off the noise from downstairs, e.g someone watching TV in the lounge.

N.b I have a electric mitre saw which can help me get nice clean/straight wood cuts

Here are some pictures :

http://www.recipesuggester.co.uk/housepics/bedroom 1 skirting board 4.JPG

http://www.recipesuggester.co.uk/housepics/power socket.JPG

http://www.recipesuggester.co.uk/housepics/bedroom 1 skirting board 3.JPG

http://www.recipesuggester.co.uk/housepics/bedroom 1 skirting board.JPG

http://www.recipesuggester.co.uk/housepics/bedroom 1.JPG


Any help hugely appreciated,

Thankyou,

Tim

 

[foxhole]

Sounds ok, a good quality carpet underlay would improve sound insulation, save tearing up boards.

 

[misterhelpful]

Sounds a pretty good plan to me too, but just a few thoughts:

Sticking the skirtings on may sound easy but most require some mechanical fixings (screws or nails), especially on uneven walls. It may also be wise to only prime and undercoat, then fix them, before painting the walls. You can also gloss them before fixing but if you do need to use screws you will need to fill the holes and touch up which can spoil fresh paint.

The sockets you have look like converter sockets - their design makes them protrude a bit further than standard socket fronts. They sit on top of original single socket back boxes turning them into doubles so you may need to change the back boxes to doubles and sink those in as well. (May not be converters though.)

When buying underlay, try and get it from a carpet remnant outlet or similar as it is generally about half the price of the big name (rip-off) carpet retailers.

 

[misterhelpful]

Double post.

 

[fenfei218]

I think this will be good.

 

[ladylola]

You mention "leveling the floor under the skirtings" which isn't really practical. A simpler solution is to scribe the skirting to the floor although if you are carpeting it's not so important.
The age of your house probably means it has lime plaster which can become loose after all that time. Try tapping the walls to see if they sound hollow. My house is an old property although not as old as yours and I had this very problem in my bedroom, stripping the wallpaper pulled off half of the plaster and stripping off your skirtings may very well have the same effect for you I'm afraid.Sorry to be a doom and gloom merchant.

 

[lizard89769]

So if the plaster crumbles away a lot when i remove the skirting boards, do i need to replace that plaster somehow ? How would I go about doing that / what materials & tools would i need ? Also, what exactly is "scribing" ? Thankyou.

 

[ladylola]

Yes you would need really to replace the plaster if it is damaged or loose. I ended up having the whole room redone rather than trying to patch it, but fingers crossed yours won't be that bad.
Scribing is cutting the skirting to match the floor. If you were to take a piece of timber just slightly larger than the biggest gap under your skirting and place it on the floor next to the skirting and holding a pencil on top move it down the lenght of the skirting you will end up with a "wavy" line on the skirting. Now cutting down that line (skirting not on the wall for this operation) either by hand or jigsaw the resultant cut will match the shape of the floor.

 

[foxhole]

You could simply replace with a taller skirting to hide damage, speak to carpet fitter I know some prefer you to leave a slight gap makes tucking carpet edge in neater.

 

[lizard89769]

I brought a spirit level and realised the floor is sloping slightly

I want to do the job properly, so I think the floor joists that the floorboards rest on need replacing or repositioning somehow, is this a very difficult job ? How would I go about it ?

I guess at least I could lift the floorboards, and clean the space underneath so everything is ready for a professional to come in and quickly do the difficult bit.

But then I started panicking that there might be some kind of asbestos fluff/insulation underneath the floorboards! How likely is this ?