Why use skirting boards

The second purpose of a skirting board is to protect the wall. Skirting boards will typically protect the walls from accidental knocks, as well as wear and tear from furniture and soiling and scuffs from mops and hoovers. In the third instance, skirting boards can be used as a really clever way of hiding uneven or rugged floor or wall edges. What this means, when you decide on how you will fit your new floor, is that you either have the choice of leaving the skirting boards in place, or removing them to enable the floor to be laid.

Now that we have nice neat sheets of machine-cut plasterboard and metal edge beads for plaster, there is no point to skirtings whatsoever. We cling on to them because of our sentimental fondness for "period" detail, and incompetent mass-market house builders like them because they allow for a poor standard of workmanship and higher speed. We "trendy minimalist" architects have eliminated skirtings and architraves in favour of a small recessed "shadowgap" detail which neatly articulates the junction between wall and floor, making wall planes appear to "float" over continuous floor planes.

There is an argument that skirtings protect the wall finish from damage by vacuum cleaners, etc. This is rubbish; it is much better to avoid hitting your house in the first place. Richard Lindley, London NW1. Without the generous skirtings in our house, assorted bikes, toy cars, push-chairs, and vacuum cleaners would long since have reduced the lowest part of the internal walls to rubble.

Christopher Lambton, Edinburgh cjlambton compuserve. The disparaging comments made by your self-confessed trendy minimalist "architect" would suggest he seldom pilots his own vacuum cleaner.

If he did he would doubtless discover the near impossibility of doing so without collision with his small recessed "shadow gap" - itself a convenient hiding place for dust and lost buttons. Even in Italy, spiritual home of minimalists and marble floors, they have skirting board, and they call it "battiscopa" - roughly translates as " where the broom hits". C H Rasmussen, London W4. Otherwise you'll bump into them and hurt yourself. This can be vital in terms of the integrity of plastered walls and while you might think it is easier to avoid hitting the walls in the first place, you will be amazed how many scuff marks appear on your skirting boards when you have them fitted.

Also, skirting boards act as a barrier to moisture ingress from the walls and protect from dust building up and miscellaneous small items getting lost, they also allow for occasional expansion and contraction of the plasterboard with temperature and humidity changes in a room. It is common to paint skirting a different colour to the walls to provide a contrast, which is a very contemporary design technique. With this in mind, you should always ensure that you paint skirting to suit the room, and also you should match skirting to the style of the room.

Skirting can match a period, such as Edwardian skirting , Georgian skirting , Victorian skirting or even contemporary skirting. In an old house skirting is usually larger and more intricate in design and is therefore more of an important and prominent feature. You can also use skirting to hide wires and cables from TVs, computers, gaming and audio equipment, so the positioning of these and when and how you install your skirting is another factor to consider.

Essentially, skirting usually needs painting and can be a challenge to fix and remove, but overall we believe skirting is an asset to a house that finishes off a room nicely and brings many benefits.