Skirtings, Architraves And The Damage That Shows

Walk into an apartment between tenancies and the walls look fine. The skirtings and the door frames are where the three years of living shows.

Chips at corners, a split where a removalist caught it, gaps opening at a joint, paint worn through at a doorway. All of it reads as tired even when the rest of the property is clean.

Why it is worth fixing properly

Because it sits at eye level in a photograph and at knee level in person, and because it is the detail that tells somebody whether a property is looked after.

A freshly painted wall above a chipped skirting looks worse than both did before, since the new paint makes the damage obvious. Which is why the trim gets dealt with before the paint, not after.

What gets repaired rather than replaced

Most of it, and that is the useful part.

Chips and dents fill and sand back to invisible. A two part filler holds an edge properly where a lightweight filler crumbles the first time something hits it again.

Open joints at a mitre or a scarf, where the timber has moved. Cleaned out, filled flexible, and repainted. A rigid filler in a moving joint reopens within a season.

Gaps at the wall, where the wall is not flat and the skirting bridges it. Caulked rather than filled, because the joint moves.

Paint worn through at a doorway, which is a sand and repaint of the architrave rather than a new one.

Lifting at the base on an MDF skirting that has been wet, where the bottom edge has swelled. That one does not fill. Swollen board is a replacement.

When it has to come off

Four situations.

Water damage, where the board has swollen or delaminated. Common along a wall below a leak, in a laundry, and at the base of a bathroom wall. The skirting is the visible end of a bigger question about where the water came from.

A new floor going in, where the skirting has to lift to get the flooring under it, or where the new floor height means the skirting no longer sits down on it. That is part of planning a floor rather than a surprise, and it belongs with [timber floors, sand or replace](/blog/timber-floors-sand-or-replace).

A profile that no longer matches, usually where a previous repair used whatever was available and there are now two profiles in one room.

Too many layers of paint, where the detail in the profile has filled and the skirting reads as a flat board. Stripping is usually more work than replacing.

Matching an older profile

The part that catches people out in a terrace or a period apartment.

Older skirtings and architraves were often deeper and more detailed than anything stocked today, and a modern profile beside an original one is immediately obvious.

Three ways through it. Source a matching profile, which exists for most common period patterns. Have it run to match, which is worth doing where a whole room is being done. Or repair rather than replace, which is why the repair options above matter so much in a heritage property, and which is part of the broader point in [heritage terraces, what changes about a trade job](/blog/heritage-terraces-what-changes-about-a-trade-job).

Replacing one length in a room with a different profile is the decision people regret.

Doors and door frames

The architrave is usually the least of it.

A door that has been forced or slammed takes the strike plate and the jamb with it, so there is a split in the frame behind the paint. A hinge that has pulled out leaves stripped screw holes that will not hold a new screw without being plugged first. A door that drags on the floor has usually dropped on its hinges rather than grown.

All of that is repaired in place, and all of it is invisible once it is filled and painted, which is why it is worth doing rather than replacing a frame. The hardware side sits with [door closers and why they stop working](/blog/door-closers-and-why-they-stop-working).

Where it belongs in a turnaround

Before the painter, and in the same week as everything else.

Trim repairs are a carpentry job, the finish is a painting job, and a vacancy is short. Running them as separate attendances means the painter arrives before the filler is in or after the walls are already done, and the trim ends up skipped. Handled by one team in sequence, it adds a day and it changes what an inspection looks like, which is the point of [make good that looks original, not patched](/blog/make-good-that-looks-original-not-patched).

Ample repairs skirtings, architraves and door frames across managed portfolios in the eastern suburbs and inner city, with the carpentry, plaster and painting sequenced by one team inside the vacancy window.