How To Maintain Your Skirting Boards to keep fresh and New

When it comes to skirting boards in your home, they can’t just be left to their own devices forever, they will need some looking after from time to time. Yes, they might be low maintenance, especially compared to some other aspects of looking after a home. However, they can’t be ignored completely.

So, how do you look after your skirting boards and keep them in good working order for as long as possible?

Here are some of our top tips when it comes to looking after your skirting boards.

Skirting boards maintenance

Below are some of the best tips to maintain your skirting boards. Do you need it? Absolutely. If you’re on rental or want to buy a house, you can opt for decorative skirting boards or unique traditional skirting boards.

Don’t Forget To Dust Them!

It can easily be missed out when it comes to dusting. Yet even with their small surface area, they can very quickly become the worst place for dust to settle.

It can be a nightmare to clean, and one of those jobs you put off again and again – perhaps hoping either someone else will do it, or they’ll magically clean themselves!

Due to their location in your home, dust will easily find its way to them – more so than most other items in your home. So, what’s the best way to start?

Before you do anything else, you will need to give your it good dust before you can clean them – if you need to. 

The easiest way to do this is by using an attachment on your vacuum cleaner. It means less bending over, or crawling about on your hands and knees, and can be a lot more effective than using a dust cloth. 

However, if you don’t have a vacuum cleaner with a suitable attachment, or your skirting boards have intricate detailing on them, you can always spray a little dust spray onto a dust cloth or microfibre rag. 

Simply wipe it down, remembering to shake out your rag and reapply the spray every now and again.

If your cloth can’t get into those smaller areas, try using a cotton bud to get into those hard-to-reach areas. 

Use Soap & Water

Once you’ve taken off the top layer of dust, you can now start to clean your skirting boards.

To do this you will need some warm, soapy water and a cloth. However, make sure your cloth isn’t too wet. You want a damp cloth, not a wet one. 

Most skirting boards will be water resistant, not water-proof so be careful with how much water you use. It’s important to ring out your wet cloth as much as you can before applying it to the skirting to avoid damaging them or making the wood warp.

Be Careful With Chemicals!

Don’t use strong chemicals such as bleach on your skirting boards as you may end up damaging them. Plus, you’ll then be left with bleach wafting about your home – which no one wants!

Instead, use a small amount of washing-up liquid, hand soap, or even some fabric conditioner instead. These are much less harsh and shouldn’t damage your skirting boards. 

If it’s a one-off, or if you’re trying to get rid of a nasty stain, you can use bleach sparingly to clean your skirting. Just make sure it’s watered down before applying and you don’t leave the bleach on there for long at all.

However, if you’re skirting boards are well beyond saving, you can find a wide range of MDF and softwood skirting boards from Skirting World.