Getting the finished look right requires consideration and planning. The team at Intrim Mouldings have provided the top five considerations to getting it right.
Timber mouldings can be easily overlooked during the design stage, but because they are in every room and hallway, they can have a major impact on the appearance of your finished house. With so many choices and profiles, the decision on which skirting boards and architraves to choose can be daunting.
Style
The style of your home’s interior will help narrow down the selection of the skirting boards and architrave profile shape you choose. You can browse the options by range style, such as Hamptons, French Provincial, Victorian, Colonial, Edwardian, Georgian or Modern. Reviewing the inspiration images on the Intrim website or by browsing socials of homes in these styles will help narrow down the selection. When you have up to four options in your shortlist, you can request samples from the Intrim website to finalise your selection. This great free service allows you to check before you commit to the profile you are after.
If you are happy with the mouldings in your home and you’re looking to extend or renovate, Intrim can match your existing profile and provide you with new mouldings exactly like your old ones.
Skirting height and scale
There are some basic rules of thumb, however they are not hard and fast. The taller your ceiling height, the taller your skirting needs to be to provide a sense of scale. Although certain design styles call for taller profiles, your decision will depend on how you want your room to look and feel as well as your budget.
To match your architraves or not?
Most people choose to match their skirting and architraves in the same profile shape, just in a smaller height. This isn’t a firm rule; many profiles from the same “style family” can be mixed and matched to create beautiful effects. Adding skirting blocks and architrave corner blocks creates another dimension to doorways, fireplaces and staircases. These finishing details can make all the difference to mastering the look.
Practicality
Do certain areas of your home experience high traffic? Do you have kids and animals running and playing inside? If so, you may wish to consider a high skirting board to provide a better level of protection to your walls — especially if you’re using wallpaper or a bold colour where chips and marks will be more visible. We consider a large skirting to be 185mm and bigger. 185mm suits most houses and spaces. Intrim suggests that in these cases, where elaborate designs are selected, it’s better to choose one with detailing on the top portion
and to have 50 per cent (or more) flat space on the profile.
Colour and Finish
Pre-primed FJ pine skirting and architraves come sealed all the way around so are ideal for most homes as they are not affected like MDF and unprimed timbers, where only the surface facing outwards is painted. Most people choose to paint them in whites and neutrals, which will create a more spacious feel, but if you want something on trend and a little different, you can try bold colours. This can close up the space, but adding colour in different areas of the room can help with creating that illusion of more space. For instance, you could paint your skirting boards and the bottom half of your wall up to and including a chair rail, mounted below the halfway point on the wall to create the illusion of a higher ceiling.
When you have made your design choices, you are ready to take the next step. You can buy your Intrim Mouldings directly or via your builder, carpenter or specialist fit-out companies. Intrim manufactures to order in its Australian manufacturing plant and ships to your site ready for you to install.
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