Do floorboards or paint room and skirting first?

[Labradorlover]

Help, in an unplanned fit of hating the rubbish laminate the previous owners put down, I ripped it up to discover some nice sanded floorboards.

However they have been badly varnished, so need revarnished.
I've stripped the skirting boards, but now don't know what to do first.....poor planning I know.
Do I paint the room / skirting first, or tackle the floor first?
Also, I've restored a wooden floor before by using varnish stripper, white spirit and lots of effort and it looked fab. But is this just giving myself lots of work, would it be easier to hire a big sander?

In terms of decorating you start from the top and work your way down, the theory being that you wouldn't want to splash wall paint on your newly painted skirting

Re sanding a floor I wouldn't know as I haven't had the luck of finding a beautiful wooden floor.

So I would have thought that you strip back the floor first before tackling all the painting work, and finishing the floor.

1. ceiling
2. walls
3. skirting
4. floor (hire sander 1st)
5. gavel

actually if you happen to be planning to paper your walls then you do skirting before.

But floor still comes last

Floor last - but the sander will damage the skirting board paint so you may have to touch up the skirting again; or you could just do one coat of paint on the skirting, then sand, then do the next coat on the skirting with floorprotection, then finish the floor.

oooh, good point, thumbwitch

2. walls
3. sand floor
4. finish skirtings
5. finish floor
6. gavel (or buy thumbwitch a drink)

Sorry, also missed the qu about the sander - yes, hire a belt sander, you get a better, more even finish.

(thanks ponders!)

We just had a room done here, decorated and floorboards sanded/stained.
I think its best to do only one coat on the skirting before sanding the floor, esp if you are going to add some colour to the boards.
Also, bear in mind you will have to dust the walls after the floor is sanded, but this is still better than sanding first IMO.

Thanks for your replies,
Ponders what's gavel? Obviously I'll buy you a drink

gavel is an obscure & little-known piece of floor finishing equipment.

no, sorry, it's one of those little MN things, like pom bears recently, & - meaning end of discussion (like judges' gavel)(not that judges have them in this country)

There was me about to make an arse of myself in a DIY shop

I have to disagree with the majority here - sanding is a filthy job, all the dust rises up and grots the walls and in older houses that have a band of black paint/pitch around the edge of the room, it causes huge black clouds over the walls that don't brush off, everything needs to be repainted. Do floors first, seal them then cover them until you have finished the rest.

not our experience, lalalonglegs. The sanding in our old house was done professionally, however - and the new-painted walls were unaffected, bar the chipping on the skirting boards.

We don't have that black band as the boards have been sanded before. It's just that the varnish job was rubbish and needs redone.

We have just sanded, stained and varnished the floors in 4 rooms. In one of those rooms we had painted the skirting boards first. The skirting boards got very bashed/marked again when we were using the belt sander and had to be re-done.

I would do the floors first, and then put dustsheets all over them while you then work from the top, down.

We got our floors sanded after painting the whole house white (and they did have the black shellacked bit) and there was no mess whatsoever. We got a pro in though with a good machine. No dust. I'm really glad we paid someone to do it.

All DIY on hold now so we can go sledging!