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.

Part 1 Adding Mouldings to Your Ceiling (and What To Do When It Goes Wrong)

My pops, a plasterer by trade, was repelled when I said I was going to do this. Ok, maybe repelled is too strong of a word, but he was not happy. How did I, his beloved daughter, risk the alienation of my papa? I put up a polysterene coving.

We need to go back to when we first moved into the house. Despite our French home being ancient, built in the pre 1850s, there are no real period features. But I wanted our village house to have something of a classic, Edwardian look about it. That meant mouldings. In the centre of the room was a medallion and I’d decided I wanted to highlight this by having a coloured ceiling. A closer inspection of the ceiling when I started work showed that it wasn’t an original feature, but a modern, polystyrene addition.

In addition to the medallion I wanted coving, and when I was searching on line I found that what was readily available was the polystyrene kind. A further search revealed that even the more expensive resin type coving was prohibitive, let alone plaster.

Added to that I was in the house on my own and would need to put it up myself. So I ran the risk of buying some.

It’s light weight and you can therefore put it up singlehandedly as a woman. However I did run into some difficulties.

Firstly it said how it would be easy to cut an angle. Well I completely mucked that up and it was a bit of a bodge job looking like this…

Unfortunately I seemed to have lost the original photos, but on some of the corners there where huge gaps between the two side. I managed to salvage them by getting some extra pieces of coving and pushing them into gaps and gluing them in place prior to caulking, caulking, caulking. Caulk was my friend, but I was unhappy with the results for quite some time. Even where there where two straight sides in a run, they looked amateurish. Not happy. More on that in a bit.

• 

Just to note at this moment though – I’ve since bought one of these to cut angles. They’re definitely worth it.

The next difficulty I ran into was that I didn’t make sure I smoothed out the glue as I applied it. I don’t know why I didn’t do something so basic. I could literally kick myself now. However I just stuck it up there and thought I’d smooth it out later with sandpaper – that doesn’t work. Whether it’s caulk or glue smooth it out as much as possible with your finger for a professional finish.

Can I just add that with the ceiling medallion in the hallway I painted that prior to putting it up and I had a much better finish. The one in the dining room was difficult to paint in situ. Obvious I know, but worth mentioning. If I was ever wanting to highlight a relief in different colours I’d definitely paint first and then touch up in situ.

Having grown so fed up of looking at shabby joins I finally ordered these wood decals from here. Those of you who have followed my mouldings series from the hallway will no I’m a appliqué queen – admittedly a small kingdom – and so I simply glued these to the coving to cover any unsightly gaps. They don’t touch all the way, but they still work.

• 

• 

• 

• 

I used clear no more nails type glue on the back of the wood decal and pushed it against the coving where I wanted it to go, holding it there for two or three minutes. This isn’t a complicated fix, you just have to be a little bit patient.

Stay in the room afterwards. If they fall off add more glue, then put them back. This happened to me a couple of times, but eventually I won the battle.

Afterwards I painted with white chalk paint to give it a plaster like texture. This had the additional benefit of securing the appliqué further.

Here’s the room before….

• 

• 

• 

Here’s the after we painted….

• 

And this is it with those little details added…

• 

I’m going to be adding more details to this room so subscribe to see how it goes.

12 Posts of Christmas; Hallway Mouldings

This is a really simple post for New Year’s Day. I’ve been thinking about how to add mouldings to the walls in the part of our staircase that has the turning stair leading up to the higher floors. Unlike the front hallway at first glance this isn’t a simple one third, one third, one third prospect where I have a type of moulding below a dado, something above in the next third, then a picture rail and ceiling section of moulding. The need to follow a diagonal line which turns into a flat can make this simple formula complicated.

The below dado section is fine, but if you want to add a series of panelled mouldings in the next third, as I do, they have the challenge of having to follow the diagonal line too.

I managed to gain inspiration from great houses and how they handled this dilemma.

Here in this green painted stately home you can see how the mouldings have been used in lines to section off areas giving clear horizontals to create tableaux mouldings. So a narrow, moulded frieze runs from the base of a higher floor around the visible stairwell.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Here it is in a more simply painted white decor, although the mouldings are magnificent.

• 

• 

Here is what I will base my blue and white colour scheme on, with the possibility of less expensive stencilled panels surrounded by simple, wood appliqué moulding frames.

• 

• 

• 

Obviously the ceiling moulding is never going to happen, but it’s interesting to see how the final area on a stairwell landing can be treated.

Bonne Année to you all!

The Salon; Remodelling a Modern Cupboard to French Country Style

I’ve written about the decor review I’ve made of the living room and how I was planning for it to reflect more of an American, French Country style. In the corner of the room was a cupboard and its obviously a modern style.

So I decided to change it to something more along the lines of how I wanted it to look. I used the same technique that I used for the hallway; wood appliqués. I’ve also used window film and faux lead light (click the links to see the other projects that use these items too).

Adding the appliqués

I used 3 rose lengths and 4 rose corner appliqués, along with some half rounds.

The first thing I did was put one appliqué aside and painted it in the same French grey that I did the rose table in. This room seems to be developing a theme. I intended this appliqué for the top of the cupboard, so painting it like this was easier.

Next I placed the rose lengths. I used no more nails glue as I couldn’t get the door from its hinges and with that, when you put it on the horizontal surface, it stays put.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Measure the centre of the door and put one of your unpainted rose lengths on. Using a spirit level make sure it’s horizontal.

• 

• 

Then ascertain where the centre line is on the bottom of the door. Measure the same distance from the bottom as there is between the top and the appliqué. Put your second rose length there ensuring they’re a direct mirror image. I chose to put the second one upside down because of the central roses I intended to use later. Make sure this appliqué is also horizontal with the spirit level.

• 

Ascertain how far you want the corner roses to be from the rose length and using your spirit level place them either side. Use your spirit level horizontally to make sure that they are directly vertical on the exterior edge.

• 

Then cut your half round to fill the gaps between the corner and rose lengths. Glue them on too.

• 

• 

Score the door horizontally using the spirit level edge placed against the bottom rose length. Then do the same thing vertically using the exterior edge of the rose corner. You should now have scored intersections to place your last two rose corners.

• 

Measure, cut and apply the final horizontal half rounds and then do the lengths.

Measure again to determine the central point then place the roses in a mirror image in the centre.

Allow this all to dry prior to using wood filler to smooth any gaps between the appliqués and the half rounds. Leave it to dry again before painting the cupboard.

When it’s finished being painted glue the final rose length to the center of the top of the cupboard prior to sanding and sealing it. I actually sealed this with clear, water based varnish for speed. I needed to put everything back before the kids got home.

Once this is finished it’s time to apply the window film. Here’s the instructions from Laura Ashley…

This was left over from another project and was a wee bit small. So I disguised this by cutting it to be a central panel and then adding faux lead light.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The room really is beginning to look more of the same style and the cupboard had been a jarring note in that. I’m so pleased with the results. I plan on revealing the whole room tomorrow so I hope you’ll subscribe and see how I’ve I’m decorating for Christmas in a French Country style.