How do I gloss skirting boards neatly?

Most people find skirting harder than doors, and it is not the paint that makes it hard. It is working at floor level, against two edges you cannot mask perfectly, with dust from the floor arriving in the wet film. Getting the sequence and the protection right removes most of the difficulty before you open the tin.

Step by step

1. Vacuum the floor and the skirting first, then again.Everything you disturb while sanding lands in the paint later. Skirting is the worst place on a job for dust because it is where dust lives.
2. Fill and sand before you protect the floor.Fill gaps, nail holes and damaged edges, then sand the whole run to a uniform key. Doing this after the floor is covered means dragging filler dust across the protection.
3. Protect the floor with something that stays put.On hard floors, masking tape along the joint with dust sheet or card behind it. On carpet, push a wide filling knife or a piece of card into the gap between carpet and skirting and move it along as you go — it lifts the pile clear and catches drips.
4. Cut in the top edge along the whole section first.This is the edge people see at eye level, so it gets the steady hand and the good light. Use the narrow edge of the brush and let the bristles do the line.
5. Cut in the bottom edge next.Less visible, but this is where paint gets onto carpet. Keep the brush lightly loaded here.
6. Fill in the face while both edges are still wet.Load the middle, spread it out to meet both cut-in edges, then lay off along the length of the board in one direction.
7. Work in sections of a metre or two, not a whole room.The section has to be short enough that the far edge is still wet when you get to it. Join at an internal corner or a natural break where a slight overlap will not show.
8. Leave it completely alone, then repeat.Two thin coats with a light sand between them, not one thick one. Check the recoat time on the tin rather than the touch-dry time.

Tips

• Take the tape off while the paint is still soft rather than after it has hardened, and pull it back on itself at a shallow angle.
• If the skirting has been painted many times and the detail has filled in, that is a stripping job, not a painting one.
• Do the skirting after the walls and before the floor is uncovered, so wall paint splashes get covered rather than the other way round.

Common mistakes

• Masking the carpet with tape. — Tape lifts pile and paint wicks under it. A card or knife pushed into the gap and moved along works far better.
• Painting a whole wall's run in one go. — The first edge is dry before you return to it, and the join shows as a lap mark down the face.

Questions people ask