Picture rail height and coving

My 1880 terrace has no adornment in any of the rooms, apart from some evidence that there may have been a dado rail in the hall, which I may reinstate.
I would like to give the rooms a bit more character by fitting a picture rail and coving, but as the rooms are 9ft tall, putting the picture rail at the level of the top of the door looks a bit odd, and the coving would have to have a "strong" profile to make any impact at that height.
Any suggestions welcome as to height of rail or style of coving (not too ornate please), and possible suppliers if at all possible.
Thanks to all.

In my 1906 house the upstairs original picture rails are/were 11 inches from the ceiling.
The height of the rooms, 9ft 7ins.
I think the rails look too high.
In one room I lowered the rail to 22 inches from ceiling (same as downstairs) and it looks much better.
I assume the rails were high to accomodate tall bedroom furniture maybe.

I'd fit the picture rail "by-eye" taking into consideration the door frames, window and any other feature in the room.
If it looks right, then it is.
None of the picture rails in the old houses I have owned were level with the door frames.

As a matter of interest the original dado rail level was 4ft 4inches from the floor.... once again much too high in my opinion but obviously reflected Edwardian taste at the time.

Our picture rails (only remaining in bedrooms) are also higher than the doors. I agree with Lime, that it's probably most important to fit them where you think is right.

I put the bedroom picture rails below the level of the window frame, but its an equal distance above the door frame. This happnes to be appoximately 22" I think, or at least it looks right to me:


I read on here some years ago that there are two rules you can follow, although I guess they're more guidelines. One of them is something like "one sixth of the height of the wall down". I can't find the post now unfortunately.

Our ceilings are 9' 4" downstairs in our 1890s terrace. The picture rail sits on top of the door architraving.

I've just taken some pics, but can't find the blasted cable to connect my phone to the computer....will try again later.

Lime said:

I'd fit the picture rail "by-eye" taking into consideration the door frames, window and any other feature in the room.
If it looks right, then it is.

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I absolutely agree. Many things can affect the aesthetically correct height of such a feature, and only by making a "by eye" judgement can you get it right. The only qualification I'd add is that, if the height you think looks correct is anywhere close to another feature (typically the top of a window or door), then it will probably look better if you align the rail with that existing feature.

wobs, I'm not sure what you're growing behind closed curtains, there, but you should note that the police are using thermal imaging to track down indoor "farming" operations these days. :wink:

Penners said:

wobs, I'm not sure what you're growing behind closed curtains, there, but you should note that the police are using thermal imaging to track down indoor "farming" operations these days. :wink:

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We've joked in the past that we should track down criminal gangs who grow marijuana in houses, as they seem so good at it. Maybe they could give us some tips growing the chillies you see in the picture. OK, not the best idea we've had.

I've always grown chillies on a sunny windowsill, where I ignore them until they look a bit wilted, then give them some water and feed, and I seem to get loads, far more than I can ever use.

Thanks for replies so far, I've just been checking the picture rail position using the "one sixth" rule, and it looks OK. Dado rail is about 3ft 7inches from hall floor.
My windows are very tall, coming only a few inches below ceiling level, so the picture rail would have to butt up against them. Would post pictures but its late and I should be tucked up for the night.

Any ideas for coving? And how to remove that horrible stipply artexy coating that seems to have been popular some years ago and which covers every ceiling in my house. :evil:

TomW said:

how to remove that horrible stipply artexy coating that seems to have been popular some years ago and which covers every ceiling in my house. :evil:

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My house had artex all over the place too including most of the walls.
It was difficult to remove but I found the best way was a scraper and heat gun plus facemask.

The previous owner saw it as an easy way to decorate without preparing anything.
I even had some skirtingboards artexed too!
However in the bathrooms I had carpet on the skirtingboards instead. Yes I did say carpet on the skirtingboards, a shag pile, light blue if I recall correctly. :shock: :? :roll:

Tom - you don't say if you plan to do the cornice yourself, or get in a company. It's undoubtedly a lot cheaper to take the DIY approach, we used these people and were pleased with the product and the customer care after the sale

http://www.uk.bondsplastermouldings.com/large_three_step_deep_cornice_1637.html

That's just an example of something that might work for you, though personally I'd go for one of the leaf or flowery ones on there - the Victorians, after all, loved their fancy mouldings.

In terms of scale we used one measuring 10 cm for a room that's 8 foot 8 in height. In terms of height, we could have got away with something bigger but the room's not large - around 16 sq m, so take room size into account too.

There is a chap on here - hoppy - whose company look like they do beautiful stuff if you don't want to do it yourself- no personal connection there. I'm sure he'd respond to PM, as PM goes to email. But perhaps he's a little too West.

Stevensons of Norwich are amazing but expensive. I wanted one of their ceilings - the quote was 8k!

I will say that I'm not 100% satisfied with the DIY job as the joins are visible despite best efforts. People comment on how lovely it looks, but I know they're there! A pic of some of our Bonds cornice - you can't really see the joins unless you scrutinise, and also, although this is a flowery one that's not very obvious either



The picture rail - just seen - isn't Georgian in all likeliness but has been there a long time.

We used these guys http://www.chelmermouldings.co.uk/index.html and were very pleased with the end result and the price. I would recommend the fitting service if you are solo and the room is large....I didn't fancy wielding a 3m length of cornice!

In our case, they were able to take a mould from existing cornice and roses in the house to provide a match for rooms where the ceilings had long since collapsed before we moved in.

Regarding the Artex removal - I did mum and dad's kitchen with a wallpaper stripping steamer.The paint layers came off on the first application, then the steam got through to the Artex and softened that up so it could be scraped off.

Messy, but we got back to a good clean plaster wall.

Many thanks everyone, I have a good idea now what I want to do.
Joce, thanks for that link to Bonds (and Pford75 for the other one), I haven't decided yet on DIY or fitted, it comes down to money in the end, of which I have not much (and soon to have a lot less- the taxman loometh :evil: ), but their information on how to fit cornice and other mouldings is excellent and well worth reading for anyone on the DIY route.

As for the removal of artex type coatings (thanks Merlin and Lime), I have tried the wallpaper steamer and although it softens the stuff, it seems to turn it to the consistency of stiff treacle which doesn't scrape very easily. I'm also not too keen on using a steam stripper on the ceiling as boiling water dripping on your head isn't very pleasant. I haven't tried the hot air gun yet, but I suspect the outcome will be similar.
Has anyone tried the chemical route for this stuff.

There appears to be two distinct types of artex apart from some that contain asbestos (warning).
There is an artex that is like plaster and an artex like plastic.
I had to use a hot air gun to remove mine as it was of the plastic variety.
The thickness of the artex precluded using a chemical and quite how it would be possible to put a chemical paste upon the ceiling without getting covered in stripper and dissolved sticky artex I don't know.
The hot air gun softened the artex and a COLD scraper was used to remove it.
A bucket of water was used to cool the scraper.

Ok, so I couldn't find my data cable, but did find my camera (which was a very welcome find). So here are some photos of our coving, please ignore the cobwebs

Beautiful mouldings, Ixia.

Why, thank you kind sir :lol:

Is that embossed wallpaper on your ceiling, Ixia? That's an idea I hadn't thought of.

It is, although not our doing, we have the same in the hallway and a different pattern in the other lounge. Presumably not original, but I've no real idea and there are cracks underneath it, so it's probably holding the ceiling up!