What are skirting boards actually for?

[Aroundtheworldin80moves]

Furniture removals arrived on Tuesday. Now trying to work out where to put things...

But the skirting boards keep getting in the way! What is the actual point on them? (Just having a minor moan here. Odd shaped rooms seem to be making our furniture not fit. The selling pile seems to be growing. Not helped by downsizing from 4bed to 3 bed...

Cover the (usually rubbish) finish between the bottom of the wall and the floorboards.

They’re for gathering dust and giving you something extra to clean.

They are there to collect dust and unidentifiable grot, as far as I'm aware.

So getting in the way and dirt collection? Brilliant. Plus meaning furniture doesn't fit flush with the wall.

Could really do with those extra couple of inches.

To stop toy cars wrecking the bottom of the walls

Don't know. Ours have been ripped out since August as partner hated them... And wants some about half inch taller. 🙄

I never even thought that deeply about the skirting boards.

Weren't they from bygone days before fitted carpets became a thing, so that a broom wouldn't bash the plaster.

You could get shadow gap skirting boards done instead?

Wood gap plaster

shadow gap skirting

You don't want furniture flush with the wall, you need air circulation to prevent damp patches. If your home is properly dry and kept warm this won't be an issue but so many properties are neither.

They are to cover the gap between the wall and the floor, it's hard to make a tidy join between plastered wall and floorboards and the edge of the plaster will crack easily.
You can get pretty small slimline skirting boards or just chop a bit out (or off the back of a bookcase) if it's desperation to fit something in an alcove.

Also you can have a flush skirting and a gap but this needs to be planned and installed at the time the room is plastered.

@Chasingsquirrels

Cover the (usually rubbish) finish between the bottom of the wall and the floorboards.

I prefer to think that it’s to give mice opportunities to cut little archways to run through like in Tom and Jerry.

😆 Iamthewombat

They are because walls are difficult to finish at the bottom, take one off and you'll see the gap. I replaced a room of skirting boards last year and enjoyed the newspaper from 1996 left to bodge a gap.

As annoying as it is to have to clean the dust off skirting boards I really hate the look of a room without them. They look totally unfinished.

It’s to show your house is Fancy (with thicker wooden skirting or maybe even -gasp- skirting with twiddly bits at the top) or Scuzzy (with wafer-thin MDF boards).