French doors...cornice dilemma

[Kinclad]

Hi,

I wonder if I could some views/comments on a dilemma I have.

We have a nice sized dining room with high ceilings that I would like to cornice using a supply of fibrous plaster cornicing from a local small company.

My problem is that one of the walls contains a set of French doors which along with the architrave go right up to almost full ceiling height. So would it look silly to have cornicing around the whole perimeter of the room but then stop and butt up to each side of the French doors?

I'm not sure what other choices I have as there is just simply no room to play with.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

Mark

 

[Nigel Watts]

Two possible options:

1. Use a pelmet over the doors to disguise the discontinuity
2. Build up the depth of the window case e.g. with splayed, panelled reveals as you might get with interior shutters, so that the cornice terminates neatly against it.

You could carry the cornice round in front of the window in the form of a pelmet, but I am not sure this would look right.

 

[Nigel Watts]

What is the period of the house?

Late Georgian/Regency cornices were often very thin in section, with more of it on the ceiling than the wall. One of these might work quite well, but you may have to run it in situ rather than do it in fibrous plaster

 

[Kinclad]

Hi Nigel,

Thanks for your comments.

The house is late Victorian. I have just taken some measurements on the drop of the cornice (10-11cm) and I think I may just have enough room to play with.

It will mean losing the horizontal wooden architrave of the door. Although that's not ideal...given the choice I guess I would prefer to lose that and have a cornice that goes round the whole of the room.

I can't really understand why there is no original cornice in there tbh. It has the original L&P ceiling and other reception rooms in the house already have cornice.

Cheers,

Mark.

 

[hoppy]

Mark,
the chance's are that originally it would have had cornice in the room, you would not need to have it run "insitu"
We have made several cornice's over the years to match existing, and you would pay atleast 4 maybe 5 times the cost to have it run "insitu"

Regards
PDS Plaster Restoration

 

[Feltwell]

Mark, I think the situation you have there is not that unusual. My house is also late Victorian and like many the sash window frames go very close to the ceiling, as your french doors do.

The windows have architrave all round, and the cornice has been cut to go around it (all original & done when the house was built). It looks fine - come the weekend when I'm home during daylight I'll take some pictures if you like. With a curtain pole running across, the architrave and cornice blend nicely.

I can put you in touch with an excellent blacksmith who made wrought iron poles with custom brackets to suit my particularly awkward windows, if you wanted a curtain across your doors.