How do I fit flooring around a bay window or a curved wall?
Scribing a plank to a curve or an angled bay so the gap behind is consistent, the expansion gap survives, and the beading covers what it needs to.
- Difficulty
- advanced
- Time
- 2 hr
- Read
- 3 min
Short answer
Make a template rather than measuring. Card or thin ply cut roughly to shape and scribed with a compass or a block and pencil transfers the wall's real shape onto the plank. Keep the expansion gap constant around the whole curve, and let the scotia or the skirting cover it.
A bay window or a curved wall defeats a tape measure, because the shape is not made of numbers. The professional method is templating: reproduce the shape physically first, check it fits, then cut the expensive material once. It is slower to describe than to do.
What you'll need
- stiff card or thin hardboard for templates
- a compass or a scribing block and pencil
- a jigsaw with a fine down-cut blade
- masking tape
- spacers for the expansion gap
Step by step
- Plan the layout so the curve gets the fewest awkward cuts.Decide the plank direction and starting line for the room as a whole first. A bay handled as an afterthought produces slivers and short cut pieces around the curve.
- Cut a template blank slightly oversize.A piece of card or thin hardboard that reaches into the bay and overlaps the area, held down with tape so it cannot move while you scribe.
- Scribe the wall shape onto the template.Set a compass, or a small block with a pencil against it, to a fixed distance — the widest gap between template and wall. Run it along the wall with the pencil marking the template. The line reproduces every wobble in the wall.
- Cut the template on the line and test it.Cut, offer it up, and adjust. This is the point at which errors are free. Do not move on until the template sits with a consistent gap all round.
- Transfer the template to the plank, allowing for the expansion gap.Trace the template, then set the cut line back from it by the expansion gap the manufacturer specifies. The gap must be maintained around the curve, not just at the straight walls.
- Cut with a fine down-cut blade.On laminate and LVT, a down-cut jigsaw blade cuts on the downstroke and keeps the visible face from chipping. Cut with the face up and support the plank close to the line.
- Deal with an angled bay as a series of straight cuts.Most UK bays are faceted rather than curved — two or three straight walls meeting at angles. Take each angle with a sliding bevel and cut it as a mitre, which is far more accurate than templating a shape that is actually straight.
- Check the beading will cover the gap.Scotia bends around a gentle curve; it does not around a sharp one. On a faceted bay the beading is mitred at each angle. Check the profile you have chosen can follow the shape before you set the gap width.
- Dry-fit the whole bay before gluing or committing.Lay every piece of the bay loose and look at the joint lines and the gaps together. Adjusting one piece changes its neighbours.
Tips
- Number every template on the face and mark which way is up. Templates get turned over, and a mirror-image cut wastes a plank.
- If the bay is tiled or has a stone sill overhanging, template to the underside of the overhang and slide the plank in — this looks far better than cutting around it.
- A cheap sheet of hardboard makes half a dozen templates and costs a fraction of one ruined plank of the actual floor.
- Keep the expansion gap constant. It is tempting to close it up around a curve to make the beading easier, and that is exactly the pinch point that later causes peaking.