skirting boards in a kitchen?

[Carameli]

Why do you need them? Are they vital? We are installing a new kitchen and have come up against this question.
I wondered if they would stop the walls getting bashed too much with a 2yr old ds 5yr old dd and newborn from next April hopefully.

WHat do you think?

There is generally an expansion gap between the floorboards and the wall, and the skirting board covers this. I think whether or not you need them (as opposed to want them) depends on what your walls and floor are made off or how they are decorated, and probably the age of your building. I don't think it matters in our house, for example, because it's a modern house with a concrete floor covered in laminate. Whereas my parents' house is 1920s with a raised floor and air ciruclating beneath the floor, so without skirting boards it can get draughty.

Skirting boards are a good idea if you're going to have toddlers bashing about with wheeled toys!

It depends - if you have a wall which is tiled to the bottom, then you don't usually have a skirting board on it. But if it's a painted wall I think you usually do have a skirting board, because it covers the bottom of the plasterboard where it joins the floor.

When we bought out (Victorian) house they previous owner had just replaced the kitchen to get the house to sell. He forgot about the skirtings at the time and I did notice it when we looked around. Have put them back now the house is ours. The kitchen didn't look finished to me without them. Dh thinks I'm nuts.

the state of the skirting boards in our kitchen deems them a necessity!
We have chunks out of ours and I dread to think what the Walls would look like without them!