Why off-the-shelf rarely works
Builders' merchants stock a handful of profiles - ogee, torus, chamfered - in standard heights, usually 119 or 169 millimetres. Period skirtings are frequently 200 to 300 millimetres tall with a profile that belongs to a specific decade and often to a specific local builder.
Fitting a modern profile next to an original one is instantly visible, particularly at the point where the two meet in a doorway or at an internal corner. If the room matters, the profile has to be matched rather than approximated.
Taking the profile
The process starts by finding a clean, undamaged length - often behind a radiator or inside a cupboard where later paint build-up is thinner. A profile gauge or a card template is pressed to the section and the outline is transferred to paper, then checked against a second location in case the first has been altered.
Paint layers distort a profile. Where there is heavy build-up, a small area is carefully stripped so the true section can be recorded. Getting this right is the whole job; everything downstream is machining.
Cutters and machining
For an exact match, a bespoke cutter is ground to the recorded profile and the new sections are run on a spindle moulder. Cutter grinding is a fixed cost, typically absorbed comfortably on a whole-room or whole-house project and less economical for a single two-metre length.
Where the budget does not justify a bespoke cutter, a close match can sometimes be built up by combining two stock profiles - for example a square section with a separately run bead planted on. Done carefully this is convincing; done carelessly it is obvious.
Choosing the timber
Most Victorian and Edwardian mouldings in London are softwood, intended for paint. Modern kiln-dried redwood or a stable engineered core both work; for large sections, laminated stock is less prone to bowing than a single wide board.
Where the original is hardwood and finished clear, species and grain matching become critical. Sample sections should be made and finished before the whole order is machined, because oak, ash and mahogany all shift colour markedly under oil or lacquer.
Fitting: scribe, do not mitre
Internal corners in skirting should be scribed - the profile of one length cut into the face of the other - not mitred. Scribed joints stay tight when timber shrinks or when a corner is not a true right angle, which in period houses it very rarely is.
External corners are mitred, and long runs are joined with a shallow scarf rather than a butt joint so any shrinkage shows as a fine line rather than a gap. Fixings should go into grounds or plugs, not just into soft old plaster.
Heights, proportions and hierarchy
Period houses use moulding size to signal hierarchy. The principal reception room typically has the tallest skirting and the widest architrave, upper floors are progressively simpler, and servants' areas are plainest. Reinstating a grand profile in a small attic room looks wrong even though every individual element is period-correct.
Architrave width usually relates to skirting height, and the skirting should die neatly into the architrave plinth block where one exists. Where original plinth blocks survive elsewhere in the house, copy them.
Panelling and dados
Reinstating panelling requires the same discipline: record the rail heights, panel proportions and moulding sections from any surviving original in the building. Panel proportions are what the eye reads, and getting the dado rail height wrong by fifty millimetres unbalances a room even if every moulding is correct.
Modern MDF panelling systems can be entirely convincing when the proportions and mouldings are right, and they are stable under central heating. What gives cheap panelling away is uniform panel sizes marching around a room without regard to windows, doors or the chimney breast.
Blending old and new
Once fitted, new mouldings need the same paint treatment as the old. Existing woodwork often has decades of build-up that softens the arrises; brand-new crisp sections next to it can read as different profiles even when they are identical.
The fix is finishing, not machining: a slight easing of the new arrises and a consistent paint system across old and new brings the two together. Prime bare timber, fill nail holes, caulk the wall line and sand between coats.
Frequently asked questions
- Can you match a moulding from a photograph?
- Not reliably. A physical template or an offcut is needed because the depth of a section cannot be judged accurately from an image.
- Is MDF acceptable for period mouldings?
- For painted work, yes, and it is more stable than softwood in a heated house. Solid timber remains preferable at floor level in damp-prone areas and wherever the moulding will be clear-finished.
- How much does bespoke moulding cost?
- The cutter grinding is a one-off cost, then sections are priced per linear metre. On a whole-room or whole-house project the bespoke route is often only slightly more than premium stock profiles.
Planning a project like this?
SH Joinery surveys every room before quoting, so you get a fixed price against a written specification rather than an estimate. Send us your drawings, photographs or rough sizes and we will come back with an honest view of what your project involves.