COR - NICE!

Is there anything that doesn’t come from China?  Now before you jump on your troll bandwagon and cancel this blog for being racist, I am merely asking a simple question here and not casting aspersions of any kind.

 

Well travelled cornice

Here’s me thinking my cornice has travelled all the way from Scarborough but judging by the small Chinese writing stamped on some of the plaster lengths, there may have been a slight scenic detour via Shanghai.  And this brings me to a small but potentially important snippet to share about plaster cornice in case your finger is hovering over the ‘buy it now’ button on any coving websites.

 

British made?

As with all things it appears that there is cornice and there is cornice.  Properly produced plaster cornice is made with hessian and batons running inside the plaster lengths to give them strength, prevent disintegration when cutting and usually comes in 3 metre lengths. 

 

Little evidence of hessian or batons

If only I’d been told this before buying my cornice, I may have chosen a different supplier or looked for a UK made product.  Size clearly matters a great deal especially for larger sized rooms as the longer the length, the fewer joins you’ll have.  My ‘bargain’ plaster cornice was supplied in 2.4 m lengths and although thick in profile appeared lacking in the hessian/baton department hence the budget friendly price. 

 

Nice corner return either side of the window

Great mitred corners

Fortunately for me, I’d found an experienced plasterer on Checkatrade who managed to minimise the impact of visual joins and cut most of the lengths without too much wastage otherwise it could have been total carnage. 

 

Downstairs hallway

A few tricky corners to get round

I guess what I’m trying to say here is firstly don’t be too swayed by product price when choosing materials for your refurbishment project and secondly, always invest in the services of a professional to get a quality outcome. 

The cornice has now been fitted and looks fabulous.  Once painted white it will offset the coloured walls with a touch of class.

Main bedroom - window wall

Main bedroom - wardrobe wall

Main bedroom - back wall

Spare bedroom - window wall

Spare bedroom - side wall

CORNICE CHOICES

Cornice anyone? – it’d be rude not to.  

If I can’t have the cupboard of my dreams then I’m going to have fancy coving instead.  The plain old coving that was ripped out is being replaced with a decorative profile plaster cornice. 

I’ve found a website called Plaster Coving Ltd UK that caters for every coving fantasy from the plain bog standard (this is not a brand) to one’s with every embellishment imaginable.  Decisions, decisions – it’s taken me 3 hours just to select 4 profile samples from the extensive catalogue of cornice.  I imagine Boris goes through the same Covid dilemma – do we fine people £800 or £1000 for parties?   Good job dinner (prepared earlier) was in the slow cooker or we’d have been very hungry.

 

Large Lancaster profile

Medium Lancaster profile

Medium Concave

Concave profile

In keeping with my passion of all things Deco, I am torn between the ‘Traditional Stepped’ and the ‘Medium Concave’ designs.

 

Traditional Stepped profile

The difference?  Think belly buttons.  It’s a case of do I go for an ‘inny’ or an ‘outey’ profile? 

Both look lovely held against the wall.  You can feel the quality of the product from the thickness and weight of the sample sent, its milky smoothness and faintly powdery texture.  Although I’m sure there are a great many fans of the more modern flexible polymer and polyurethane varieties, I always think the plaster type feels right and looks more solid but at the end of the day, choice is largely governed by budget although for this, I think it would be worth pushing the boat out. 

Okay so I’m leaning more towards the concave profile because I’ve got an ‘inny’ belly button and using your own anatomy is as good as flipping a coin or using any other way of making a final decision.  I do think the concave one looks more streamlined pressed in toward the corner rather than poking out.  What do you think?  Am I just being anal about the whole thing, after all it’s just a bit of coving right? 

Contrary to the above and after hours of naval gazing, yes you guessed – I’ve gone with the Traditional Stepped (the first one I liked) even though it’s an ‘outey’ design but it’s the Deco looking stepped part that swung it.  Cost to buy enough coving for both bedrooms plus the whole of the downstairs corridor has come to around £350 including delivery.  It’s official, my age is now greater than my bank balance!

PARROT PARTY

Some people spend a lifetime deciding on whether to come out of the closet or not but I have just spent the morning in the closet having a parrot party.  More on that in a mo. 

Unable to remodel my existing cupboards into one big walk-in wardrobe due to the way in which the loft space was originally converted into bedrooms, I’ve had to make do with giving the old cupboards a bit of a face lift.

 

BEFORE - boring cupboards

DURING - being enlarged

AFTER - transformed with IKEA doors

An economical way of updating cupboard doors is to buy them from IKEA.  The Vikedal mirror doors look very smart and IKEA also have an extensive range of fibreboard doors in different styles and finishes that you can buy individually.  I’ve gone for the white shaker style Grimo door to complement the mirror doors.  Good on the purse with quality that is far better than making them from MDF.

BEFORE - ready to decorate

 

AFTER - freshly painted interior

IKEA also sell a wide range of interior wardrobe fittings such as pull-out drawers or trays like these from the Komplement range that can be easily added to your own MDF frames.  Just build a cube then screw in the side runners to make your own customised wardrobe interior.

IKEA pull out drawers & trays to customise interior

 

So where do parrots feature in all this?  In a secret, tropical aviary created on the back wall of each wardrobe. 

Browsing round Homebase the other day, I spotted this wonderfully exotic parrot wallpaper and had a bit of a light bulb moment.  Why not use it for a feature wall and to line the insides of the cupboards? 

Fresco Amazon wallpaper

And here it is, adding a bit of a designer touch to the inside of the closet.  It’s our very own parrot party.

Start in the centre of your wall space

Cut side sections to fit either side

Secret aviary in the back of the closet

AFTER - totally tropical flavour

And after a long morning of cutting, pasting and pattern matching, it's time to chill out on the beach at nearby Bracklesham Bay.

Bracklesham Beach

Enjoying a bit of exercise and fresh sea air 

It's a beautiful spring day at the seaside

RUBBISH

Good riddance to bad rubbish!  Or should I say to everyone’s rubbish as it seems builders charge you for a skip then use it to dispose of all the rubbish they accumulate on everyone else’s job as well as yours.  It appears this is another quaint tradesperson custom.  For our job alone we could have gotten away with a much smaller skip thus saving a few quid.  Something else to be aware of for next time.

 

Good riddance!

The removal of the skip means the end of the job is nigh and not before time.  I can’t wait to get stuck into the painting and decorating but not before remedial work is completed on the damaged wall.

Re-plastered wall

And repainted ready for the plumber's visit

Needless to say, the wall was repaired and the radiator refitted at their expense (I would have expected no less) but I was all ready to pull on the boxing gloves to fight out my corner in the Negligent Plumber Knock Out.

 

Let's hope it doesn't break the wall again

Meanwhile, spring has sprung, bank errors are not in my favour and there’s little chance of collecting £200 from passing GO or from anyone else but at least I’ll have a nice looking lawn.

First mowing of our new lawn