Removing and replacing all woodwork

[Ladybird909]

We are hoping to move to a new house in the next few months and we are not planning to move again unless something major comes up. The house doesn't need too much doing to it but does need redecoration throughout. I want to do the best I can to make it look amazing and we have a reasonable budget to get most things done as soon as we move in.

One of my huge annoyances about previous houses we have lived in is badly painted gloss woodwork where the paint has aged to a horrible off white and some of the doors don't close properly because of all the layers of paint!

We've never had the money or time to sort it out before but this time I really want to have beautifully painted white woodwork. We will need to replace all the flooring throughout as well including having a wooden floor downstairs.

My question is, how easy is it to remove all the woodwork in the house and start again?! Including removing skirting boards, door frames, architraves, room doors and cupboard doors. Will it be really expensive? Does anyone have experience of doing it themselves??

[Fogg]

I asked a joiner friend this question as it was something I considered for similar reasons. He said there is a good chance of the plaster dropping off too and it becoming an even bigger job. I decided to paint the skirting and replace the doors.

[MiniMum97]

Why don't you just strip the wood back. We did that in our old house as it had layers of badly painted woodwork with hairs and buts if carpet in and all sorts! We stripped all the skirtings etc back to bare wood and repainted them and they looked lovely. We did replace all the doors which I think is an easier job as there is no risk of damaging the walls. If we had had nice doors I would have stripped them too though. They were horrible MDF. So we replaced them with wood doors. All look v good one done.

[MiniMum97]

You can take doors off too and have them dipped.

[Ladybird909]

Thanks everyone, I thought it might be expensive but didn't think about the plaster being damaged as well! I think stripping and starting again and maybe new doors is the way to go.

[Theycalledmethewildrose]

It isn't a big job to replace skirting boards. When you get the wooden flooring, all the old skirtings will have to be removed, sand them down once removed as some of them can be reused and some will crack and need to be replaced. The new flooring will be higher than the existing floor so when the skirtings are put back on, they will be raised by a couple of cm. Any missing chipped plaster can be filled, sanded and painted when you paint the walls.
It makes a huge difference to the room but I'd get a carpenter to do it rather than tackle it myself other than sanding, filling the cracks and painting myself.

[JoJoSM2]

I'd say it might be quite a big job with the knock on effect of patching up and painting surrounding walls. Not of it is that complicated but it takes a long time to replace and repaint everything. I'd expect to spend a few k on all the materials and labour + lots of rubbish to remove too.

[trixymalixy]

How old is the house? If it's an old house then any woodwork you buy will not be of the same quality as the original.

We had to replace skirting in a Georgian house because of damp and it never looked as nice as the original.

Personally I would strip it rather than replace.

[Theycalledmethewildrose]

We did our downstairs recently - sitting room, dining room and large hallway. We put down solid flooring, new skirtings where we couldn't reuse the existing (only two lengths needed). It cost 5K but half of that was the carpenter's labour. HTH.

[Ladybird909]

Thanks guys, that's really helpful, am itching to get in there now!

[RandomMess]

If you decide to replace, fit oak - I waxed ours. No more manky gloss, no discolouration, no chips - marvellous!

[Theycalledmethewildrose]

Random - can I ask how you find your waxed floors? We had ours oiled but I'm pretty certain they will chip. Before they were laid, I was ok with the idea that they would chip and wear because I like the look of old floorboards. Now they are down and are new, I'm less keen on that happening anytime soon.
I was put off waxing because I thought they would be quite slippy and we have young children.

[RandomMess]

I only had waxed skirting boards and architraves! Our floor was engineered oak in some rooms, bamboo in others!

[Theycalledmethewildrose]

Ah right, thank you. I love the look of a waxed floor. Unsure of the practicalities for our young family though.