Detailing around bay window

[fernicarry]

I finally made some progress on the refurb of the bay windows in the "green" room. The sashes are now fully painted in and out, beads replaced, new furniture, properly balanced (courtesy of some weights found buried in next door's coach house) and are generally a delight to operate. I'm now considering what to do in the surrounding area. Oddly there doesn't appear to ever have been any sort of architectural detailing around these windows. The plaster comes right up to the linings and the wallpaper just stops short with nothing to form an edge against, the dado rail kind of peters out with a blob of filler to round off the end and the picture rail doesn't even attempt to go around the corner. Its probably not that noticeable with the curtains up (they haven't been up for a good ten years so I really can't recall...), but it doesn't seem nearly 'good' enough.

The only detail I can find, and its hardly noticeable, is a 5/8" bead sat into a rebate along the top of the window heads. Its a separate piece applied to form a junction between the plaster above it and the window. Sadly the massive pelmet thing was attached by nailing diagonally through it so its largely destroyed (the pelmet it going). There is nothing similar up the sides of the windows but it could have been removed or covered over when the walls were skimmed. I could recreate it but I think something a bit grander is called for.

The other front rooms have very nice paneling in the window reveals and heavy architraves around that. The bay reveals are strapped and lathed so if there ever was paneling it was removed and made good a very long time ago (possible, old fireplace positions are also lathed over). This room has definitely been modernised at some point and part of the ceiling has been done in plasterboard but no indication of the walls having been touched (other than skimming). The materials used have introduced breathability problems as you can see from the paint blisters, peeling wallpaper and tide marks so I rather suspect it needs a more significant intervention, but ignoring that for the moment...

I'm thinking to put an architrave around the window opening in a profile that matches the other rooms. Easiest would be to just put the architrave around the top and sides of the opening tight against the window frame and keep everything else, skirting board, window board etc., as is. The detail where it meets the window boards will be awkward to make, I can't imagine it to be honest. Better option to bring the side of the architrave down to floor level in line with the corner of the skirting board, remove the skirting boards below the windows and create a small area of paneling matching the other rooms. The gap between the architrave and the window lining can be filled with a plain board which will match how the two linings meet on either side of the centre window. I think I could just about manage that and I think it would look reasonably 'correct'. The ultimate option would be to panel the whole reveal but I can't see me living long enough to complete that or being happy to let someone else have a go...

Thinking of the top of the opening, if I make the architrave the same width as the other front rooms (6" +) then its going to completely fill the gap up to the cornice, unsure about how that will look. It'll be a two-piece moulding so I can have it any width I please and even make the sides and top different widths and adjust the angle of the mitre to suit. Would that look off?

Also need to figure out how to mount the curtain rail. Really not keen on anything resembling the current arrangement. Someone obviously had a thing for massive chipboard pelmets as there was also one over the front door doing its best to obscure the even nicer cornice there. Nothing screams "drafty old house" quite like a curtain at the front door... Could I just attach the rail to the architrave or should it be stood off some distance? Concerned about the leverage if its stood off, there's a fair weight in the curtains. And the curtain rail will need to extend over the reveal so that gives me another transition from architrave to plaster. Maybe another moulding similar to a dado rail fixed to the plaster at that height? Has to be better than metal shelf brackets sunk into the plaster...

Finally there's what to do with the picture rail. Should it continue around the corner and across the reveal in he same way as the dado rail? I don't imagine I'll be hanging pictures in the bay but it looks odd just stopping short.

Thoughts, ideas, opinions and other forms of inspiration welcomed.

Thanks.

 

[Stevers]

The sash windows in our 1879 stone house all have splays, the plastered reveals all run up to nice straight edges onto the boxes. We just paper or paint the wall up to the painted box. There is no trim or other detail there, it's never struck me that it looks odd or any sign that something might be missing.

 

[Cubist]

When I see things like this I find myself thinking "What was in the heads of the people that did that?". It was clearly a gorgeous bay with an excellent view, but stand back and take in the picture at the entrance to the room and it all goes belly up probably. Rightly you're getting rid of the abomination of a pelmet box, of which I think I see the last vestiges, and I think you're right that a wide architrave will not sit well in the room if its top edge is too close to the cornice, in fact it may completely unbalance it and ruin the overall picture. I think I would be considering whether I could insert a panel of timber(s) strong enough to carry the chosen curtain rail but mounted so its exposed surface is flush to the surrounding plaster and blended to it is as seamlessly as possible and over which a new paper could perhaps be pasted.

Where dado and picture rails are concerned I hate it when their tails are left hanging in space and whilst I agree that turning them into a bay like that servers little functional purpose, particularly picture rails, their dimensions and form may produce much more appealing boundaries and balance with the window frame and cornice.

 

[Stevers]

It might be better to keep it simple so as not to steal the thunder of the lovely coving, and a beaded board seems a good option for the top of the window opening. A bead is also a very good way of finishing timber when it butts to plaster. In general I'm a big fan of smaller beads applied using a couple of old wooden moulding planes (1/4" and 3/8"), and I often sneak them into jobs, but you need to select the right pieces of wood for those old planes to really work their magic.

I'm also a fan of picture rails - not to hang pictures, but to take the ceiling colour down the walls (never 'brilliant' white) to improve the proportions of rooms. In our living room we inherited one set (possibly original) that were set too high and ended awkwardly half way up the arches over the alcoves, when more logically they could finish at the base of the arch. The staff beads over the arch now continue the line of the lowered picture rail, which is very pleasing to my eye. Where there are picture rails running into our splays they all run onto the sash box and are never left hanging like that dado rail.

 

[fernicarry]

Thanks for the suggestions, good to know that there is some precedent for the way it currently is.

I will think about a lighter touch to frame the opening. Sinking a board into the plaster seems like a good idea for the curtain rail. I've done that upstairs to carry radiators.

I did a bit more digging, mainly with a view to going with option 2 and paneling below the windows, and found that the framing below the windows is completely shot. Very rotten, partly skanky plaster board and not really attached to anything other than the window board so that makes that decision for me. The skirting board will be reused upstairs where I'm moving a doorway.

The pelmet box has now fully exited the building... and indeed you have to wonder why anyone would do that. This room also has a very large red brick fire surround, so I can only assume it was subjected to a full on 1980's makeover.

I also chased back some of the plaster where the reveal meets the splay (new word!) which exposed more of the window lining and I can see a row of nail holes that might have been for a bead. Whatever the detail was it must have stepped inwards because the paint line seems to lie behind the original level of the plaster.

Anyway, here is a mock up of what I am thinking. A plain board to fill the space above where the window board meets the reveal (the 60' undercut to bevel it will be a challenge). Then a decorative piece to straddle the plaster and this board running all the way down to the floor. The dado rail, picture rail and skirting board should butt up against this so it will need to be thicker than they are. The paneling below the window will sit just behind the front edge of the window board and will meet the edge of the decorative board. I'll make new window boards with a staff bead on the front edge to match the other rooms. Just how decorative this piece should be and how it will transition across the top of the opening tbd.

I'm somewhat committed to this due to steaming off some of the wallpaper which was very keen on ripping along the horizontal joints in the lining paper. Either that or I'm committed to re-papering the room... Not particularly attached to this wallpaper (Compton Hall) but someone must have spent a pretty sum on this room in the past so I'll try to retain it. If I pick out the background indigo for below the dado rail, instead of that mint green splotchy wallpaper (with matching radiator!), then I think it will look a lot more settled.