28th March 2016
Nobody ever notices a skirting board. Architraves are
commonly ignored. And cornices are lucky to get anything more than a fleeting glance.
Yet the installation of these building components has made a big difference to
our everyday experience of The Orchard. Suddenly the house feels finished, even
though, by some distance, it is not.
That’s because these edge details perform the crucial function
of covering up all the untidy junctions where one interior plane meets another. In these
before and after pictures you can see the difference the skirting board has
made on the ground floor. As the timber frame sits on a concrete plinth,
slightly above finished floor level, there is an insulation detail between the
floor edge and the bottom of the plasterboard. As insulation is essential but
never, ever pretty, this all necessarily disappears behind the skirting board.
The junction between the plaster and the oak door lining is not quite as messy
but it is still much improved by the architrave, not least because a frame
around a door subtly increases the pleasure of going through it.
In the bedroom we also installed a cornice as this room has rather
more extravagant finishes than elsewhere. As well as the reclaimed parquet floor
(an Australian wood), there’s a William Morris wallpaper (willow) and a bamboo
ceiling with a rather ragged edge, now hidden by the cornice which Ford painted
over Easter in the wonderfully named Salon
Drab green. The bedroom is not, however, a drab salon. It’s just a dark and
slightly mysterious corner of an overgrown wood. 
SO cool. Such a simple thing you never notice and yet without it things would look worse and be soooo much harder to make look good!
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