Materials you'll need:

• Wooden wedges
• Replacement skirting
• Finishing nails
• Flat piece of timber
• Carpenter's pencil
• Wood filter
• Primer
• Paint
• Coping saw.
  
  Tolls you'll need:

• Paintbrush
• Putty
• Screwdriver or pry bar
• Wood block
• Hammer
• Pliers
• Mitre box
• Hacksaw
• Nail se

The main role of skirting boards is to hide cracks between floor and walls, although they are also decorative. If skirting is damaged or missing, new boards can be cut to replace the old. The same techniques used to replace skirting boards can also be applied to fixing other mouldings such as picture rails.

Remove the old skirting.

If old boards are to be re-used, handle them with care. If quarter-round quad has been used along the edge of the skirting remove this first by prying up with a small pry-bar or screwdriver on a wooden block for leverage. Once this quad has been removed you can start on the skirting board itself.

1. Start at an external angle where the mitres meet, inserting a small flat pry-bar between skirting and wall. Work down the wall, inserting wooden wedges in the gaps until you have pried and wedged a whole wall. You can now either pry the skirting board off the wall. or go back and tap the wedges in deeper until the skirting is forced off.

2. If you can't get a grip on the fixing nails to pull them out, use a nail punch to punch the nails into the walls. When you reach corners, it doesn't matter if the joint is mitred, which side you lever up first. If the joint is butted, take the overlapping board off first.

3. At doorframes, scrape paint away from skirting to expose nail heads and punch them into the wall before levering off skirting.

4. As you lever off boards, leave them loosely alongside their "home" wall. If they are to be replaced, go back and number them and their neighbours so you will know where they belong. If any pieces are to be discarded, perhaps they can be used as patterns to cut the new skirting, depending on how badly damaged they are. If the skirting is beyond repair, cut new moulding to replace the old.

New skirting boards can be purchased from your hardware supplier or timber yard. When ordering allow an extra 50-75mm. per length for cutting mitres.

Now cut the lengths as follows:

Use an inexpensive wooden mitre box to cut the required 45-degree angles. Check each piece against its neighbour before cutting with a fine blade tenon saw. To make an inside right angle, cut one piece of skirting to the exact size required. Place another piece of skirting down against the back of the first piece and check that the tapered end of the top piece points to the edge of the bottom piece. It not, turn the top piece until it corresponds. Now trace the contour of the top piece onto the bottom piece and cut along the pattern with a fine tooth saw. The pieces should then fit together forming a false mitre. When all sections have been cut to size, mitred and tested for fit against each other, treat all visible knots and prime the wood on both sides ready to install.

Where the old skirting was fixed to the wall battens, mark the location of battens on the floor so you can still find them when the skirting is in place. Starting at a doorframe, nail the skirting to the battens using finishing nails, punching the heads below the surface of the timber. Avoid denting the timber with your hammer as such bruises will show up under paintwork later.

If, as sometimes happens, the floor is not quite smooth, place the uncut skirting along the wall where it is to go, rest a pencil on a flat piece of wood so the point is touching the skirting, and slide the pencil along the floor so it marks the contours of the floor on the skirting board. Trim to fit.

Finally, sand lightly with glass paper where required but do not damage the priming coat. Fill all nails holes with wood filler and allow filler to dry before painting.