The term of shabby chic style of decoration was originated in the US in the 80s. This type of style basically creates the appearance of distressed, worn or tear furniture or home decor to achieve antique looking decor style.
This type of style isn’t for everyone, you either love it or hate it. The colours and shapes of the furnitures can be quite similar to the ones that are traditional style, the main difference is the worn colours. Usually the furnitures and decors can have layers of paint, some of them partially or fully worn out. To create that style, there are a few things you can do. Use your skirting board for examples, (real wood skirting boards like oak or pine works the best, because MDF wasn’t invested back in the days.) you can paint or glaze part or all of your skirting board, leave it to dry and settle down sufficiently, then sad or rub part of the top coat paint or gloss. Don’t worry if it is not neat, which is a the point, as natural worn effect can be random and uneven. If you like the partial wood shown, then you can stop there. If you really want to show the age of the board, you can carry on painting more coats on then rub or sad away more layers as you like.
Although real wood is preferable, that is not to say MDF is totally not acceptable. What you need to be careful is that your undercoat sufficiently cover the MDF surface, only leave some layers of worn paint or gloss. There you go, you can achieve your very own unique shabby chic looking skirting boards. You can use this method on any furnitures you wish.