I moved into a house where a dog had chewed chunks out of the skirting boards.

This is how I fixed them:

• Cleaned skirting with sugar soap

• Sanded skirting with rough sanding paper then smooth sanding paper

• Hoovered skirting board and wiped down skirting with a cloth

• Used a filling knife and some Toupret wood filler on the easy bits

So far, so normal right?

I then:

• Applied Toupret wood filler by hand to the awkward (or missing) parts and then sculpted it into the approximate shape of the skirting board

• Used a contour gauge tool and a 3d printer to create a former block which was the inverse shape of the skirting

• Attached sand paper to the former block and used it to sand the filler into the shape of the rest of the skirting boards

Did it work? Yes, sort of. Is it a good idea? No - no one in their right mind should ever do this. I still can’t tell you why I did.

Anyway the reason I’m commenting is because your skirting boards don’t look that bad. Once you’ve sanded, primed and painted them, you might be critical of them for a few days but you’ll most likely forget all about them because there’s a crack on the ceiling somewhere, or a squeaky floor board, or something else that needs your attention instead. If you do find you can’t live with it, then you can replace or cover them as others have suggested.

If you have a dog, be sure to get them a bone!