Little Details

Part 4 Adding Mouldings to the Ceiling; A Wood Carved Ceiling Detail

I’m continuing with the ceiling details and it’s starting to look more impressive. I’m waiting for some more wood carved appliqués to arrive for the section between the picture rail and the cornice; I decided in the end to add more as it looked better. Apart from that I’m nearly at the end of adding the mouldings, next will be completing some paint detail. I’ll update you on whole room pictures when we’re at that stage.

In the meantime another glimpse. The room has gone from plain white like this….

to this…

This last section cost less than £50, and was so simple to complete (just like the frieze detail). If you dis-count drying time it took a maximum of two hours!

Paint the wood carved appliqués

As with the details between the picture rail and the cornice, pre-painting the wood carvings mean that you save yourself a lot of mess when you try and paint them in situ.

Mark where the main mouldings will go

With chalk mark where your central wood appliqués will go with crosses. As you do each one start to draw a straight line between each pair, using the spirit level.

To make the placement of the crosses easier I just took the spirit level length, about a meter long, and placed its end flush with the cornice edging. Making sure it was straight I marked the area with a cross. On the corner sections I marked the intersection of a spirit level length from the two walls.

Glue the first appliqué on

I started with one of the middle appliqués first. Place it so it’s over the centre of the cross, then line the ends of the width so they’re touching the horizontal lines. Hold the appliqué in place for about 30-60 seconds.

Glue the wood carved lengths so they start at the furthest length on the horizontal and run along the same line.

When you glue them try and get glue along the length of the length so it sticks properly, but don’t use too much so it squirts out of the sides.

Add a corner moulding

Add a corner appliqué next, but place it on a horizontal angle. As you can see below the two length appliqués have to come out of these at different angles so that they follow the chalk lines.

These is what it had started to look like.

My original intention was to add in half rounds to link the sections along the chalk line. However I started to think that the details were sufficient on their own, and adding the half rounds may have highlighted any inconsistencies in the connections. So I just continued with the details.

Continue round the room like this. Here is a close up of the title photo…

You can see it’s all starting to come together. I’m so pleased with the effectiveness and price of these wood mouldings. If you add wood appliqués in Amazon or ebay you will come up with a grand selection for any project you wish to try.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Part 3 Adding Moulding Details To the Ceiling; A Wood Carved Border

In this post on Lincrusta I shared the most beautiful freize and how I couldn’t afford it. When you’re refurbishing a period home you must be careful with your budget, obviously, as there are so many hidden costs. So being resourceful is a necessity. How did I get the look I wanted? I turned to wood carvings. Again.

They’re becoming a bit of a go to of mine; they’re inexpensive and you can use them in so many projects. In this one I thought I could use them as a border. It was a very simple process that just involved measuring out the space and putting the wood carvings within a suitable distance of each other.

Paint the wood carvings

I quickly spray painted my carvings prior to using them. It means that I don’t have to paint them in situ and therefore didn’t have to worry about overlapping the contrasting colour of the wall itself. Just put them in a large box and spray paint; the box will act as a shield for the surrounding area. Spray paint can be super messy.

The coverage of the carving wasn’t thick, but that’s ok. I can touch up just the tops later and not risk ruining the walls.

Measure the distance and calculate the positioning.

I had 23 wood carvings. On the wall with windows there could only be three wood carvings realistically, so that left me with three walls and 18 wood carvings. So six carvings per wall.

As the wood carvings are 30 cms and the wall is 380 cms I divided the wall into eight, then the difference between the length of the wood carving and the length of divided wall was the distance between each wood carving.

So in this case 380 divided by 8 was 8 x 45, with 20 remainder. I then divided that 20 by two and added ten cms additional gap on both ends. The adjoining walls and the optics of the two corner wood carvings meant that this didn’t look out of place.

Mark where the wood carvings go

I drew lines with a pencil where the wood carvings would go. I did this for two reasons. One, it allowed me to make sure I was happy with the arrangement and two, because I could ensure that the line was straight, and therefore it would give me a good guideline for positioning the wood carving itself.

Just glue in place

It’s this simple. Just get some no more nails type glue, add sufficient glue on the back and glue in place. Be careful if it’s white as it could destroy the paint job underneath; put it in larger areas and not too much so it doesn’t splurge out of the sides.

Stand back and admire it

Yes, that simple.

So how much did it cost?

Remember I told you that a Lincrusta border was £300? Well this cost me less than £40.

The paint work needs to be touched up and I have more details to add to this ceiling area, hence my briefly sharing here. I hope to update the next part shortly.

Also, if you have Lincrusta or Anaglypta wallpaper have you kept it? Do you want some? What are your thoughts on this period homes staple? Or do you think you would be happy with the wood carved, cheaper option? Let me know in the comments below.