Help! Plastering and new flooring- both at same time or separately?

[Caroline147]

Hi,

Longtime lurker, so bear with me for my first thread but I could do with some advice! Basically we’re in the middle of renovating our first property (2 bed flat in London- already completed rewiring, new windows, plumbing work, new bathroom) and now at a bit of a crossroads:

We have two jobs next on our list, replastering across most of the flat and then new engineered wooden flooring in the same rooms. In terms of budget, we would be stretching ourselves very thin in order to do both jobs simultaneously and we’re also worried about getting paint on the new flooring! So we’re leaning towards just having the plastering done, painting everywhere and then having new floors once we’ve built savings back up in a couple of months. Is this crazy, due to issues with skirting boards and so on? We could obviously just wait a couple of months and do it all together, but we’re keen to get as much done before Christmas as possible. Appreciate any thoughts:)

Well technically you can't do both simultaneously as the plaster would be stepping on the floorer!!

Plaster first...floors second. ..skirting last is the correct order...

I've lived for years on and off with no flooring or skirting. ..it's fine...

Plastering makes an unholy mess. Do it first otherwise your new floor risks getting trashed

I'm not quite sure if your dilemma - you need to plaster first, irrespective of anything else.

Then whether you paint or floor is up to you & your preference for walking on bare concrete etc for a while?

Skirtings can't go on til the floor is down, so you'll have to do those (or buy pre-painted if that is a thing) after the floor is down anyway.

Thanks all, really helpful. For clarity, we have some quotes for trades who will complete both plastering/flooring/new skirting in one go and some quotes for just plastering, and wondered how much of a pain in the arse it will be to opt for the latter!

Do we need to remove the skirting for the plastering then? That way we can paint the walls, then have flooring done and new skirting added.

I assume that if someone is quoting you for both jobs they will do them in the correct order.
It's more a matter of how much money you have to do it all in one hit and how desperate you are to finish the work.
Also plaster can take weeks to dry properly before you can paint it. So you would still have a time lag before you could finish off.
It definitely looks better if you take the skirtings off and do it in the order pps have put above. However if you have special skirtings, for example period plaster, you might destroy them by taking them off.

Definitely don't plaster and put engineered flooring down at the same time. The moisture in the plaster stands a good chance of making the floor boards bow. In fact, don't even have the floorboards delivered until you have finished plastering..