Skirting and architrave: the cheap moment to change them

Skirting boards are searched for roughly ninety thousand times a month in this country, mostly by people buying the boards. The interesting question is when to fit them.

On its own, it is a whole job

Changing skirting by itself means clearing a metre around the perimeter of every room, prising the old boards off, making good the plaster behind them, fitting, filling, caulking and then repainting the bottom of every wall. The mouldings are the cheap part.

Alongside something else, it is nearly free labour

If doors and new linings are going in, the architrave has to come off anyway. If panelling is going up, the bottom rail meets the skirting and the wall is already being decorated. If a floor is being laid, the skirting is off or the beading is going on regardless. In all three cases the disruption has already been paid for.

Height and profile

Skirting has to work with the door architrave rather than fight it, so the two get chosen together. If you go taller than the existing boards, there is a paint line on the wall where the old one sat, and that means decorating. Match the height and you can often get away without.

Coving

Worth saying plainly: in a room much under two and a half metres, a deep coving closes it in. There are shallower profiles that work. Anyone who tells you every room suits coving is selling coving.