Plastering advice needed

[T1berious]

Hello,

I'm hoping someone here will be able to give me some guidance.

We will soon be undertaking refreshing our Dining room and Lounge. Its a Victorian property and as much as I love the cornicing, It's broken in several places. we're looking at re plastering (repairing where possible).

Anyway, if we look at replacing the cornicing would it be massively destructive to the plaster that's already there on the walls?

Here's some pics.





We'll be replastering the ceiling as part of the project.

Cheers in advance for your advice,

T1b

[LooneyTunes]

Why would you want to get rid of that? It's lovely! There are still people who will make small sections of replacement mouldings.

If the plan is to replaster the ceiling to get rid of the cracks, you may be wasting your time: it's more of a ceiling replacement job (with the mouldings left in situ).

[JoshSm]

Replacing it would be massively disruptive. Repairing is an option and is the far better one.

It's not that you couldn't rip & replace if you absolutely had to but it's not a cheap option.

Having sort of been there to reinstate removed features, to do it properly is a bit specialist which == ££££.

What you have there can have the paint stripped to reveal the detail, and you can have it fixed and have the ceiling sorted too without starting from scratch.

[T1berious]

LooneyTunes said:

Why would you want to get rid of that? It's lovely! There are still people who will make small sections of replacement mouldings.

If the plan is to replaster the ceiling to get rid of the cracks, you may be wasting your time: it's more of a ceiling replacement job (with the mouldings left in situ).

Thank you!

Sadly there's cracks on the walls, ceiling and coving...

We've decided to just do both rooms and "anything" that needs doing. Long story short, we gave it a lick of paint when we moved in and (not my idea) papered over some cracks (again, not my idea) but the paper has come away in places.

Didn't know you could get small sections of replacement mouldings.

Thanks for the tip!

[T1berious]

JoshSm said:

Replacing it would be massively disruptive. Repairing is an option and is the far better one.

It's not that you couldn't rip & replace if you absolutely had to but it's not a cheap option.

Having sort of been there to reinstate removed features, to do it properly is a bit specialist which == ££££.

Cheers, I guess I'll be looking at finding a local specialist!

Many thanks,

T1b

[wolfracesonic]

You could remove the cornice cleanly if you ran a small angle grinder where it meets the wall, then if the new cornice is the same depth you wouldn’t know it’s been done. You’ll probably have to re-plaster behind where the cornice is but it will be covered up by the new stuff…but as asked above, why not just have the existing repaired? Plenty of firms out there that can do this.

[Rollin]

All depends on the condition of the plaster on the walls. You need to do some tapping and listen for any hollow spots where it's debonded from the wall, especially near the ceiling. I've been putting off dropping a lath and plaster ceiling for a while in our house as I've done one elsewhere and it's not a pleasant experience. At least you'll be able to put that radiator in the skip while you're at it.

[FlyVintage]

Hang on, I’ll send my plumber round…….

[LooneyTunes]

T1berious said:

LooneyTunes said:

Why would you want to get rid of that? It's lovely! There are still people who will make small sections of replacement mouldings.

If the plan is to replaster the ceiling to get rid of the cracks, you may be wasting your time: it's more of a ceiling replacement job (with the mouldings left in situ).

Thank you!

Sadly there's cracks on the walls, ceiling and coving...

We've decided to just do both rooms and "anything" that needs doing. Long story short, we gave it a lick of paint when we moved in and (not my idea) papered over some cracks (again, not my idea) but the paper has come away in places.

Didn't know you could get small sections of replacement mouldings.

Thanks for the tip!

If you're going "all in" on it, you can cut out the existing lath and plaster ceiling an inch or two into the room then plasterboard off the original joists + reskim to match the level of the bit you've left behind. Perfect ceiling, with original mouldings. That's been done in several of our rooms but for others we live with the ceiling imperfections. It is not a clean job!

The mouldings guys can take moulds from the existing and then cast new to suit. Have a look at the likes of: https://www.covingonline.co.uk/plaster-moulding-re... to get a better idea. Not always as expensive as you might think to have that sort of thing done.

If you want mouldings to look crisp, the guy who looked at bits of ours said they use a product called Peelaway to strip off existing paint from the existing mouldings.

For the walls, localised crack filling solves a lot of issues at least temporarily (old buildings seem to move a bit)

[dhutch]

LooneyTunes said:

Why would you want to get rid of that? It's lovely! There are still people who will make small sections of replacement mouldings.

If the plan is to replaster the ceiling to get rid of the cracks, you may be wasting your time: it's more of a ceiling replacement job (with the mouldings left in situ).

Agree in spades!

If in the Northwest, I have used Adams Plaster Mouldings in Bootle, as per the above posts link.
https://www.covingonline.co.uk/

[Mr Magooagain]

This is the type of company that would do whatever you needed. https://www.artisanplastercraft.com/artisan-cornic...

As others have said it’s a very messy and expensive job, if replacing cornice, ceiling and walls.

Is the house listed?

Repair would be less financially painful but from what you’ve been saying I’m not sure you would be happy with a repair.

[ashenfie]

It’s fairly simple to make mould a build new section. Cracks can be filled simply and invisibly, you only need to re plaster if the old plaster is loose or crumbling. I done a quite a few patch and paint jobs all resulted in invisible fixes.