Today's Review: Skirting Boards

On the tail of my IKEA assembling adventure, I would like to introduce you all to my new nemesis: the skirting board.

Skirting boards, or baseboards, as Wikipedia informs me, serve the purpose of covering the joint between the wall and the floor. They also serve the purpose of not letting you put anything flush to the wall anywhere in the entire house. Hence the problem I come across with my IKEA instructions telling me to attach their units to the wall, I just can't. There's a prominent gap between the wall and where the skirting board ends that is completely useless, and just invited things to drop down behind the furniture, and I don't like it.

But I'm stuck with them. From what I've seen they come as standard in most places. But why? I don't understand the purpose. If they are really only for covering up the joint between wall and floor, surely there is now just a joint between skirting board and floor on show. Any carpet or laminate flooring I lay  only serves to accentuate that joint. So what is the point? Why do I need this useless hunk of wood running along every wall? They get in the way, get dusty, they are just annoying.

My rating: 0/5