Kitchen countertop skirting, selection and installation

Despite its small size, the skirt­ing board in the kitchen plays an impor­tant role in the aes­thet­ic per­cep­tion of the inte­ri­or of this room. There are sev­er­al vari­eties of this ele­ment of dec­o­ra­tion, so you need to make the right choice.

What functions does the plinth on the countertop perform?

Every detail mat­ters in inte­ri­or design. All fin­ish­ing ele­ments have their own func­tion and are nec­es­sary to give the room a fin­ished look. The need for bor­ders arose because the kitchen set can­not be installed close to the walls. There are always gaps between them and the cab­i­nets.

The coun­ter­top is the work­place of the host­ess. Cook­ing, wash­ing dish­es and many oth­er activ­i­ties take place here. Such sur­faces require reg­u­lar clean­ing from crumbs, water and dirt. If there is a gap between the head­set and the wall, both mois­ture and debris will get into it. This is fraught with the cre­ation of unsan­i­tary con­di­tions, the devel­op­ment of mold, the for­ma­tion of unpleas­ant odors.

This fin­ish­ing ele­ment also has one more impor­tant func­tion: it pro­tects the mate­ri­als from which the set is made and the wall cladding is made from get­ting wet. Cab­i­nets are made from wood-fiber prod­ucts: chip­board, MDF and sim­i­lar. Such mate­ri­als are hygro­scop­ic, swell and deform under the influ­ence of mois­ture. Kitchen skirt­ing for coun­ter­tops helps pre­vent these prob­lems. It secure­ly clos­es the gap and gives the design of the head­set a beau­ti­ful look.

Choice principle

Choos­ing a kitchen skirt­ing board is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. Sev­er­al fac­tors must be tak­en into account and prop­er­ly assessed. Among them:

1. The loca­tion of the kitchen set: along one or more walls.
2. The width of the gaps formed.
3. The even­ness of the walls adja­cent to the head­set, and the type of their fin­ish.
4. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of locat­ing sources of open fire or strong heat in the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty of the walls.

Man­u­fac­tur­ers of fur­ni­ture for the kitchen devel­op the design of sets tak­ing into account the instal­la­tion of the skirt­ing board and either offer it to the client upon pur­chase, or rec­om­mend pur­chas­ing the most suit­able prod­ucts to elim­i­nate the gaps between the cab­i­nets and walls. The choice large­ly depends on the col­or scheme of the facades and coun­ter­tops. But only the buy­er knows all the details of the inte­ri­or of his premis­es, includ­ing wall dec­o­ra­tion. There­fore, it is often nec­es­sary to make an inde­pen­dent choice. The most prac­ti­cal and inex­pen­sive option is alu­minum skirt­ing boards for coun­ter­tops.

Shape and dimensions

When choos­ing a skirt­ing board, atten­tion is paid not only to the mate­r­i­al of its man­u­fac­ture. Shape and size are just as impor­tant. Fin­ish­ing ele­ments should fit snug­ly on the coun­ter­top on one side, and on the wall on the oth­er. This ensures a rec­tan­gu­lar arrange­ment of the inner slats. Its out­er side may be dif­fer­ent:

• bev­elled;
• curved;
• have a rec­tan­gu­lar ledge.

When choos­ing, take into account the dimen­sions of the bot­tom bar and guide. The height and width of the shelves can be dif­fer­ent. The most impor­tant para­me­ters of the plank that will be adja­cent to the coun­ter­top. The plinth should go at least 1 cm onto it. Wires are hid­den in the space between the inside and the dec­o­ra­tive insert of the col­lapsi­ble plinths.

Installing a kitchen skirt­ing board on a coun­ter­top is sim­ple. Any own­er can do this job. It is also suit­able for women and teenagers. It is impor­tant to choose the right instal­la­tion method and know the sequence of actions.

Varieties of plinth by material

Accord­ing to the mate­r­i­al of man­u­fac­ture, there are sev­er­al types of skirt­ing boards for coun­ter­tops:

1. alu­minum;
2. plas­tic;
3. wood;
4. ceram­ic;
5. steel;
6. from arti­fi­cial stone.

All of them have advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages. Prod­ucts made of wood and arti­fi­cial stone are also made to order accord­ing to the sketch­es or wish­es of the client. This makes your kitchen unique. Ceram­ic prod­ucts go well with tiles. A plinth made of arti­fi­cial stone or wood is cho­sen if these mate­ri­als pre­dom­i­nate in the design of the head­set.

Made of plastic

Plas­tic prod­ucts have their own advan­tages and are the most com­mon choice of the con­sumer. First of all, the elas­tic­i­ty of these slats attracts. They can be slight­ly bent with­out com­pro­mis­ing the aes­thet­ic per­cep­tion of the fin­ish. The rel­a­tive elas­tic­i­ty of this mate­r­i­al is impor­tant in the design of curved sur­faces, which are formed when the walls are of poor qual­i­ty. All oth­er types of bor­ders do not have this abil­i­ty, which deter­mines the pop­u­lar­i­ty of plas­tic.

These prod­ucts are made from polyvinyl chlo­ride by extru­sion, then any col­or is giv­en with the help of pig­ments. The plinth has a remov­able out­er strip, col­ors and pat­terns that are cho­sen in accor­dance with the inte­ri­or design.

Most in demand: fin­ish­ing under stone, wood or met­al. The dis­ad­van­tage of plas­tic is its insta­bil­i­ty to heat and brit­tle­ness. The plinth is attached to the coun­ter­top with spe­cial glue, which is sold in build­ing and fin­ish­ing mate­ri­als stores, or with self-tap­ping screws. Most often, only the low­er shelf of the slats is fixed. The rea­son is that when attach­ing the top to the kitchen back­splash, the tile can be dam­aged. In addi­tion, with the slight­est move­ment of the table, cracks can form on the base­board. The most con­ve­nient fix­a­tion on liq­uid nails, glue such as “Tita­ni­um” or “Moment”.

Aluminum

Alu­minum plinth is more durable and has no less choice of col­ors than plas­tic. In order to give the out­er bar a beau­ti­ful look, an oxide film is applied to it. It has an easy to clean sur­face and is resis­tant to abra­sion. There­fore, the skirt­ing board can be washed with abra­sive par­ti­cles, which can­not be done with plas­tic. To install alu­minum fit­tings, choose the method of mount­ing on self-tap­ping screws.

Varieties of plinth by design

Plinths have a dif­fer­ent design solu­tion. This depends on their con­fig­u­ra­tion. The list of fas­ten­ers and con­nect­ing ele­ments may include:

• out­er and inner, left and right cor­ners;
• con­nect­ing strips;
• self-tap­ping screws;
• plugs left and right.

The com­plete set depends on a con­fig­u­ra­tion of a line of reg­is­tra­tion of a table-top. The remov­able out­er bar can be snapped into place or slot­ted into the grooves on the inside of the plinth. Also, its body can be one-piece. The instal­la­tion of the plinth is car­ried out in the ways rec­om­mend­ed by the man­u­fac­tur­ers.

cast

On request, you can make a one-piece mold­ed plinth, which exact­ly repeats the line where the kitchen set adjoins the wall. This is an advan­ta­geous solu­tion in all respects, since it ensures the tight­ness of gap over­lap­ping.

Expen­sive kitchen fur­ni­ture is equipped with such prod­ucts. Most often they are made of steel, spe­cial­ly processed wood or mar­ble.

Universal

Uni­ver­sal kits con­sist of sev­er­al strips, con­nect­ing and fas­ten­ing ele­ments. Such skirt­ing boards are mount­ed on sur­faces of dif­fer­ent con­fig­u­ra­tions. The stan­dard length of the planks is 2.8–3 m. The instal­la­tion of the plinth begins with cut­ting them into pieces of the desired length.

Installation

The instal­la­tion of the skirt­ing board begins with the prepa­ra­tion of the sur­faces. They should be free of dust and debris. If plas­tic prod­ucts are mount­ed, the coun­ter­top is pre-degreased with white spir­it. This is fol­lowed by instruc­tions on how to install the skirt­ing board on the kitchen coun­ter­top. Regard­less of the mate­r­i­al of man­u­fac­ture of prod­ucts, the fol­low­ing steps are per­formed:

1. If the plinth is pur­chased in dis­as­sem­bled form, con­nect the inner and out­er strips.
2. Check whether the head­set is installed cor­rect­ly and, if nec­es­sary, align it along the wall.
3. Choose a mount­ing loca­tion. Ide­al­ly this is a table­top.
4. Set inside and out­side cor­ners.
5. The dis­tance between them is mea­sured with a tape mea­sure, tak­ing into account the entry of the slats into the grooves of the con­nect­ing ele­ments (5 mm).
6. Mea­sure the required lengths of the seg­ments and put marks on the plinth.
7. Cut off planks with a hack­saw.
8. On the left and right sides of each seg­ment of the plinth, 5 mm of a dec­o­ra­tive insert is cut off. This dis­tance is required to enter the out­er and inner cor­ners. If mount­ing on self-tap­ping screws is select­ed, dec­o­ra­tive strips are not insert­ed back after trim­ming.
9. The inner part of the plinth is insert­ed into the grooves of the con­nect­ing ele­ments.
10. Attach each plank to the coun­ter­top and/or wall with self-tap­ping screws.
11. Install exter­nal face­plates.

If the instal­la­tion is car­ried out with glue, it is applied before installing the dec­o­ra­tive strips on the coun­ter­top or the bot­tom of the assem­bled skirt­ing board. The final stage of work is the instal­la­tion of end caps.

There are sev­er­al impor­tant points in the design of the junc­tion line of the kitchen set to the wall. The first is the cor­rect­ness of the mea­sure­ments. It will be pos­si­ble to cor­rect the error only if the mate­ri­als are avail­able. There­fore, an inex­pen­sive plas­tic or alu­minum plinth is bought with a mar­gin.

Anoth­er impor­tant point relates to the instal­la­tion of plas­tic prod­ucts. For a tighter fit to the wall and coun­ter­top, the side faces are treat­ed with sand­pa­per. This will make the sur­faces rough, and the glue will fill in all the micro­c­racks.

There is anoth­er rule for mount­ing the plinth on glue. After press­ing the strips to the sur­faces on which they are fixed, it is nec­es­sary to imme­di­ate­ly remove the squeezed out glue. This is done using any object with smooth edges. It is not rec­om­mend­ed to use a cler­i­cal or oth­er knife, because scratch­es may appear on both the base­board and the coun­ter­top. If every­thing is done cor­rect­ly, the work­ing area in the kitchen will be dec­o­rat­ed beau­ti­ful­ly and reli­ably.