David Robinson ) wibbled on Monday 07
February 2011 22:28:

Cheap "pine" skirting from local builder's yard is less than £1/m. MDF
oak is £5+/m, and real oak is similar.

We're having some engineered oak doors, and just want to wax them (no
shiny finish for the kids to chip off). It would be nice if the
architrave and skirting vaguely matched, but not at £5/m.

I was looking at liquid beeswax to get a similar finish and colour,
but found an old post on here that suggested applying Colron light oak
stain to pine made it even more yellow - that's not the look we want
at all.

Yeah, I know, don't be so cheap, or it won't look anything like!

It's going on top of oak effect laminate btw. We really are trying to
go for child-proof and cat-proof.

Any ideas?

Cheers,
David.

I'm using real oak skirting - mostly because I never want to paint the
bloody stuff - I hate painting endless miles of wood that gets chipped in a
year and looks crap until the next repaint.

I didn't feel the price was too bad considering some people pay twice as
much for a set of curtains which will be dead in 1/20 of the time that the
skirting is.

But - to address your point - in my old flat I did exactly as you were
suggesting - used pine.

I went over it with a microporous stain/finish of some sort - wasn't pure
Colron - it was more like a Ronseal coating product (not varnish) - I did
mine to a darkish finish, brown and it looked perfectly good with all the
advantages that one could overcoat it later without a tedious rubbing down,
and the finish soaked in leaving a very mild sheen and did not tend to chip
off.

Can't remember exactly what product (I used Ronseal exterior in the bathroom
which was a bit more shiney but tended not to chip off either) - but if you
look in B&Q for something of that type for interior use, it will be very
similar to mine.

Try to select non resionous pine sections - some of the stuff B&Q sell
bleeds goo from everywhere. Wickes IME are a reasonable source for generic
white wood that is mostly straight and dry.

HTH

Tim

--
Tim Watts