Special Skirting boards and profiles with laminate, LVT, PVC and vinyl inlay

VISIBLE WITHOUT BEING ON SHOW

A MAJOR TREND IS THE QUEST FOR SKIRTING BOARDS WHICH ARE PART OF THE TOTAL INTERIOR IMAGE

Pascal Thiel (Carl Prinz - D)

Pascal Thiel has been a marketing manager with German skirtings specialist Carl Prinz for more than 15 years. Since a number of years, he notices how the market in inlay skirtings keeps on growing.

“We started offering these inlay skirtings when design floorings became more and more prominent on the market, but especially the last 5 years this is quite booming and becoming more and more relevant. The portfolio is expanding and the end is nowhere near in sight yet. When you produce profiles, you depend on the flooring market. This means you accompany the market and design according to the trends.”

“Profiles are normally not a design item. Customers are interested in discrete products that you don’t want to see. In general, you can say the emphasis is still on the floor, design skirtings with inlay slots help to create a general image. In it, you see only a very small amount of the aluminum.”

“When we say the demand in inlay skirtings is growing, we are talking about something you don’t really want to see. There are two different approaches. One is that skirtings become visible with, e.g, led, the other is that the skirtings literally vanish from sight and where the skirting has the same design as the floor itself. 80% design of skirting is the same as the floor.”

Art of being visible without being visible

“I would like to add that we also have stairnoses that work the same way, with inlay in the front. You can put a strip of the flooring itself into the stair nosing, so the complete stairs are covered in design floors. Decades ago you had very heavy, visible stairnosing, but now the profile is taken to the background and the flooring is front and centre. The same goes for skirtings. You could state that inlay skirtings are all about the art of being visible without being visible, skirtings are not the main actor.”

“I would like to conclude by expressing our hope to be able to meet our customers again. For the Dutch market, we would especially want to show a new version of our powdercoated black stair nosing during Domotex or a lot sooner, during a much smaller fair in October: Architect@ Work in Düsseldorf.”

How do you choose the right skirting board for every floor, wall, doorframe, or staircase? It’s no easy job, certainly on a market where the range of decorative and technical accessories is booming and the range is so wide that floor fitters almost have to build an extra storeroom for all the stock. In this context inlay skirting boards are the solution par excellence because you yourself decide whether the skirting board matches the floor completely or, on the contrary, there is a full or partial contrast.

To cut a long story short, inlay skirting boards are primarily a purely technical solution because you separate the decorative and technical aspects from each other before you start on a job. With inlay skirting boards, you basically regard them solely as bearers, which you might or might not finish yourself with (in our case) an element found in the floor (or the staircase, the wall, or the door frame). You can do this, for instance, with an inlay in PVC. These skirting boards are obviously made available in various thicknesses so that they can be used for the diverse sorts of flexible floor covering or laminate or anything whatsoever.

Ready for fitting or you finish it yourself

You have to draw a distinction in the range between two sorts of skirting board. On the one hand, there is the skirting board which leaves the factory ready for use and is supplied with the chosen inlay. And so, it is already fitted with the right strip or plank from the accompanying floor and is then finished in situ. It’s also possible to glue or clip it onto the bearer or a sort of Velcro can be fitted.

On the other hand, a skirting board can also be offered as a neutral product, but it is ready for use. And so, the finish depends entirely on the fitters themselves on the site, and this paves the way for radical personalisation. Just as with the other variant, what it boils down to is that a universal solution is offered which suits everyone’s interior.

Trend towards invisibility

When we look around in the field, it’s noticeable that there is a clear trend towards a finish where the skirting board ‘disappears completely’. Certainly over the last five years, the stress has come more on the general image to be formed, whereby inlay strips in turn strive for a good degree of ‘invisibility’ and the floor continues to play the lead role. Someone might ask: ‘And what about skirting boards with built-in LED elements?’ Here there is a functional difference. By contrast, with LED, you want the skirting board to be seen, but mainly for functional reasons. Certainly with commercial projects it can be helpful, for instance, to illuminate the way to the exit in the dark.

Finish for stair nosing

We’ve noticed another striking trend with the finish of stair nosing. Many years ago, stair nosing was rather cumbersome and visible, but nowadays things are completely different. An obviously attractive market is that where an inlay is offered in the front side of the stair nosing whereby you slide the profile itself to the background to put the (design) floor in the spotlight.

As far as we are aware, there are no exact figures for inlay skirting boards, but we have noticed from our enquiries that people want the same look for the skirting board and the floor for no fewer than 80% of finishes. Or as the manufacturer from our testimony summarised it so aptly: ‘In today’s market, the skill lies in being visible without being on show, as the skirting board certainly isn’t the leading player on the interior stage.’

Some other specialists have their say:

Auer Metallprofile

In addition to a multitude of stair nosings, connecting profiles and special profiles, Auer Metallprofile also has various skirtings made of stainless steel and aluminum. From flat i-shape, via click-skirting, and then to edged and extruded L-shapes, to r-skirting boards to bump and push a variety of coverings, such as the 60 x 10 x 3,2 mm aluminum design skirting. This is suitable for bonding 2 to 3 mm floorings and adapts optimally in every room by the combination with the laid design floor. This skirting board is available in the anodized colors silver and stainless steel colored as standard colors. Other anodized colors or with powder coating are available on request. Matching inside and outside corners can either be miter cut or manufactured as a 30x30 mm corner by us. Special cuts or bended skirtings are also available on request.

Küberit: Innovations 2021

The New Küberit Skirting Trim Skirting trim professionally renovated Küberit has completed its wide range of floor, wall and stair profiles with the new skirting trim type 928 for the renovation of tile skirtings.

When installing LVT flooring, they enable a base that is as attractive as it is durable and has the same decor. Smart Solution covering all common skirtings The new Küberit skirting trim made of aluminum in the anodized colors silver and stainless steel optic brushed can be installed without a lot of dirt and extensive rework. It is designed so that LVT coverings up to a thickness of 3.2 mm can be glued to the profile. The small nose on the top edge of the profile ensures a clean finish and protects the flooring strip from wear and tear. The new skirting trim gives a wide range of design options and allows a professional and durable implementation. The 51.5 mm high profile can be installed effortlessly at variable heights. The covering gauge of 8 mm is calculated to cover the most common skirtings. The advantages of the Küberit cover strip for tile skirting: - specially designed for renovations of stone and tile floors with LVT floor coverings - professional, durable solution - easy gluing over old tiles with the skirting trim - low workload, no noise pollution and little dirt - design of a new, shapely, decor-matched skirting board - Inner and outer corners as well as end pieces made of high-quality and color-matched plastic material

Progress Profiles

Among the wide range of skirting boards produced by Progress Profiles, many of them correspond entirely to the floor. SKIRTING 7016 and SKIRTING 7011, for example, are two models for floating floors in laminate wood: thanks to over 100 different shades of wood, they can be chosen of the same color of the floor. Made of PVC foam, the laying of these skirting boards can be performed with gluing or with a simple structure fixed with screws, bolts or nails. The Italian firm produces the bearing element in aluminium, stainless steel or PVC expanded foamed vinyl resin. For the inlay, it fits to order and is industrially applied, varying one from another. Progress Profiles focuses on quick and easy customization of the skirting board with Promultiskirt Square and Promultiskirt Round. These two new patented models are equipped with pre-engravings on the back and front (not visible): they can be easily carved, choosing from different heights - from 10, 8 or 6 cm.

Photo – Auer Metallprofile