Fitting coving to bent ceilings?

[Doug71]

I'm panelling out a room and the customer is going to fit coving around the top to the ceiling (not sure what type yet). It's an old place and the ceiling is up and down, in one area there is about a 25mm hollow in the ceiling, can a gap that large be filled and look okay?

Cheers, Doug

 

[DrPhill]

I am not an expert - just an amateur DIY person...... but most people do not look at the ceiling. Sure the customer is going to look at it when you have just done it, and if he points it out to his friends they are going to look at it, but a year later no one will notice. Well a few people always notice that sort of thing but, hey, old properties have character.....

As for noticeability - does the 25mm vertical difference occur over a short horizontal distance or a long one? A 25mm deviation over 100mm is going to be a lot more noticeable than the same over 1000mm. Dead matt paint helps a bit, as would a very slight curve between the vertical fill and the horizontal ceiling to hide the sharp line between the two. Can you fill the entire hollow? (I am not a plasterer so don't know if this is possible).

 

[Cabinetman]

As was said it depends over how long it is, also depends on what type of coving, if it’s still the wet new plaster type it can be bent a bit, the other thing is of course will it follow the line of your panelling, it may be that you are best to halve the distance and fill. Purely what is going to look best really. Ian

 

[mikej460]

I don't think it will look bad at all in an old building. Just fill/plaster and paint to match the ceiling.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

There seem to be two choices:

• fix the coving straight and fill the joint between coving and ceiling by up to an inch
• curve the coving so that the ceiling/coving join is more consistent

I would be inclined to do the latter - having a variable ceiling to coving joint will be far mor evident than a curve of the coving against the wall.

 

[PerryGunn]

If there's a lot of work going on in the room, I'd plasterboard & skim the ceiling to flatten it - more work & cost initially but will look much better afterwards

 

[bryan267]

You said its an old place, high ceilings? If so like perrygunn says. You can also use it as an opportunity if its upstairs. I recently put 50mm pir board then plaster board screwed through to the existing joists. Made a big difference to both looks and heat and no one is any the wise on ceiling height.

But if not then i would match coving to wall paneling more than to ceiling, keep straight with straight, maybe add a step to the fill where its deep.

 

[Doug71]

Thanks guys.

I'm not fitting the coving the customer is doing it himself, I'm just trying to work out what I think will look best so I can nudge him in the right direction.

With the walls being panelled I'm thinking the coving needs to run parallel with the panels rather than following the ceiling.

I did suggest a new ceiling right at the start but the old one is full of character and has loads of old hooks in which they don't want to lose.

The thing is the coving will be painted the same colour as the panelling so it looks like part of it (probably a drab grey colour) but the ceiling will be white. I'm thinking the filler above the coving will need to be painted white so things look right?

Anyway today we discussed leaving a gap above the coving as a shadow line which will solve many problems including venting the void behind the panelling so that might be the way forward