I finally picked up a tool after a year and half on site, even if it’s just a paintbrush.
Dad was back in action on site to install the skirting board and I’ve took up the role of painting and filling them. We chose a simple flat skirting of red deal wood 70mm high, we chose this as Dad prefers to work with real wood rather MDF, both perform equally well, but he just loves the smell of timber. There may be more warping with the red deal, but once it’s screwed in place it’s fine.
My initial job was to sand and prime the skirting board and once they were painted, they needed a further sand as the paint brings out the fibres in the wood. It was strangely satisfying to do a repetitive task and have a result at the end of the day.
We considered a variety of options to fix the skirting board from nail gun, glue and screws. We were trying to minimise the amount of filling of holes, but screws gave the strongest tightest fix. Dad was well prepared and made a mitre box to cut all the corners at an angle and had shorter lengths pre-cut for the window reveals.
My job then was to do the filling, this involved sanding down loose splinters of wood, then filling with a great product called Fill and Finish from Knauf. I tried a few different fillers, but this one sanded down so easily and left a lovely smooth finish. I also got some tips from the plasterer on how to apply filler, it’s an art in itself, you need the right tools, a couple of metal spatulas with a bit of flex and a light hand, similar to icing cakes or applying make-up (but I doubt my plasterer would agree with this comparison).
To be honest this part of the job was kind of tedious, but at this stage of the build, it’s good to be able to do some of the work and gave me time to day dream in the house, watch the changing light and imagine a finished home, each month and week, we get a little bit closer. In progress at the moment is kitchen and doors installation, tilling, so it’s all go, it’s hard to stay on top of the updates, but stay tuned for more to come.
