BEADING FOREVER

The floor is one of the parts of the house that you are most physically connected to. It makes the most part of what your house looks and feels like. You can walk barefoot and shrug off all the tiredness of a hectic day at the office, especially if it is a hardwood floor. No matter if it is the oak or the Maplewood, the fragrance of the aging wood is so refreshing and becomes the beating heart of your home.

As we all know, it takes a lot of time and money to install a hardwood floor or laminate floor. Professional floor contractors are required with the right skillset and modern tools and equipment to make sure everything goes where it should. It even feels like solving a puzzle. You are playing with the individual pieces and you have a sketch of what the finished product would look like. And in the end, with effort and expertise, you get there.

A laminate floor is not a straightforward thing to install or repair, despite the common belief. There is so much detailing and thought that goes into it that it is not possible to do it yourself, even if you have some experience working and tinkering with the floors.

For instance, take beading and skirting boards. Many of us have not heard those words before we got into working on the floor. Still, if you are adamant about getting things done yourself, we will help you with the beading of the laminate floor. But before delving into this specialized flooring term, let us explain what it is and how it works.

Edging

The work is not done by sampling putting the pieces together on the floor. It is time for finishing and professional touches to make the floor looks neat and tidy. This is where beading comes into the picture. Beading boards are specially designed boards that go into the gaps left between the floor and the wall. As you can imagine, if you leave the gaps as they are, it could accumulate dirt and debris as well as compromise the structural integrity of the floor by leaving space for the boards to come out with the slightest pull.

It should be interesting to mention that beading is not the only term or article that is used to cover this space. There are skirting boards that can do this trick as well. Actually, this setup goes as a complementary set. Either the skirting board goes with the beading or the beading boards go with the skirting. So, it all boils down to decide if you should bead or not!

Before we progress further, let us explain these terms that are going to be used extensively in this post.

Skirting

This term refers to the installation of wooden boards in the gaps that are created in the process of laminate floor installation. These gaps are usually found between the wall and the floor which are closed by using skirting boards. They are milled and designed specifically to do this task with a certain ease. As with the number of options when it comes to wooden or laminate floors, you can always find skirting boards corresponding to that laminate floor.

Beading

Generally, beading involves covering the additional gaps when you replace a floor. The material used for beading is not necessarily wood. There are a number of materials that are used in the production of beading. It includes wood, PVC, MDF, etc. It is a more instant and versatile choice when it comes to filling the gaps in a time and cost-effective way.

As far as using one or the other or one in conjunction with the other is entirely up to you. In your decision making, there are factors that will come into play, such as:

• The convenience of removing older skirting boards and putting them back on once you are done with your newly replaced floor.

• The desire to go the traditional way of doing the skirting boards or exploring new avenues like using beading materials.

The Right Time For Beading

If you ask a professional floorer or a contractor with ample experience in installing and replacing wooden floors, there is no ideal or right time to go for beading. According to them, the skirting boards are just fine to work because they go seamlessly between the gaps and mingle with the lamination as if they are a unit of the whole, which they become. Not to mention that it always looks and feels cleaner when you go for the skirting boards.

Having said that, it is not always cost-effective and prudent as well to undo all the skirting boards whenever you need to repair or replace your floor. At those times, beading is an excellent contender that can fill the voids between the walls and the new floors with absolutely no trouble at all.

If you are renovating your house and you still want the skirting boards, you can have them. This would change the course of work for laminate floor installation because you would have to make alignment with the skirting boards as well. Or you can take another approach. You can install the floorboards by making the edges of skirting boards as the new “wall” and then fill those gaps with beading.

How Much Beading Is Enough?

Now that we are past the idea of whether using beading to fill the gaps or not, it is time to know how much beading would be enough. Of course, it will always depend on the area that you need to cover with it, which makes it very easy once you know how to measure things.

It involves two steps:

• The number one is to run a measuring tape around the edge of the room. This will give you the mark of the length of the room in meters.

• Once you are done with the measurement, you need to divide the number you get in meters and divide it by 1.6. Just to remind you, the standard beading lengths come in 1.83 meters which means you will have enough surplus to even work your way around after some errors.

This way, you can use a beading to completely fill the gaps that run through the length of the walls along with the floors. If you have not hired a professional laminate floor contractor, it would be harder for you to remove all the skirting boards, replace the floor and then put the skirting boards back on. Even, there is a danger in removing them because there are chances many of the boards could not stand the chocks of pulling and pushing. At this point, beading is a great save which uses a variety of materials to cover the space.

Alternatives To Beading

With the advancements in technology, there are newer products coming in each day. Most of the time, these new products are much better than what came before them and can be used as their alternatives for long-lasting results.

So, if you are not much of a fan of beading and it not affordable for you to rip off all the skirting boards to replace your floor, there are alternatives!

They will offer the same level of utility and protection thus giving you the ultimate peace of mind that you are looking for.

Threshold Trims

If you are looking for alternatives to beading that can serve the purpose, you are in for a treat. It is because it can not only serve the purpose but with style.

Threshold trims are used for the exact function but they come in a T-shaped trim. This way, they can easily slide and sit between the gaps of flooring and the wall. They are sturdy and functional to the core and you can install them with no problem at all.

The best thing about these threshold trims is that you can buy them in the same color and finish as your laminate floor. This makes them a part of the whole with no distinguishing characteristics to set them apart from the floor. For many people, this is better and more convenient than beading.

Carpet Trims

While we are on the subject of trimmings, you can never go wrong with carpet trims if you can’t pull off all the skirting boards and do not like the beading either. It can be a great alternative also because of the metallic finish in which it often comes.

With the wooden skirting on against the laminate floor, the metallic trim all along the length of the wall could look great if not awesome.

If You Want To Remove The Skirting Boards

It is not always an easy task to remove skirting boards because of so many adhesives and screws and bolts that you have to mess with. So, it is a lot of work that requires time and patience on your part. Many let this part go and work around the alternatives. If you are not one of the many, here are things that you need to keep in mind if you want to remove the skirting boards:

• The plaster from the walls will come off as soon as you remove the boards. In order to get the boards back once you are done with the reflooring, you need to scrape those parts before reinstalling them.

• In the process of removing and putting the skirting boards back on, there are chances that many boards snap off and require replacement.

• Before reinstalling the skirting boards, it is important to re-plaster the areas where the original plaster was flaked off.

• There are also healthy chances of repainting the skirting boards, depending on how you removed them and how messy it got.

• Once you are done with the floor, you would want to put the skirting boards back on. But you would realize they are not fitting the size. Fret not, you can resize them using a miter-box.

Keeping all the points in mind, if you are planning or removing the boards, you should also consider the condition of your laminate floor. If it requires replacement or reinstallation, now may be the right time to do it.

Expansion Gap

When you are working on reinstalling the floor, it is important to mind the expansion gap. It should be left around the whole edge of the room when you are laminating the floor. There is no exception to it, even in the cases of main walls, fireplaces, even areas with pipes, etc.

If you are planning to use the beading along with the skirting boards, you should go for at least 12mm as the expansion gap. If you are just using the skirting boards, then around 8 mm of expansion gap should be enough. If there are spacious halls that you have laminated, then you can even leave larger expansion gaps if you want.

In case you don’t leave the expansion gaps, you may have to redo the floor. It is because you need to leave some room for the floorboards to breathe. During the times when humidity rise, the wood expands in size because it absorbs that moisture. By leaving expansion gaps, you leave some “room” to the floor so it can dilate without warping itself. So, you need to be mindful and leave small expansion gaps while you are redoing the laminate floors yourself.

Why You Should Remove Skirting Boards

Here are some of the reasons why you should remove skirting boards in the course of redoing your laminate floors:

• You will get an excellent finish with the beading which is not possible with pre-installed skirting boards.

• If the beading gets loose, you can work your way around.

• You can replace the laminate flooring with carpet without worrying about expansion gaps.

Conclusion

There are alternatives to it, but beading is still considered to be one of the most excellent choices to cover expansion gaps. For the clean and even look, you can skip the beading and go for the skirting boards only.

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