Coving Schmoving

As my eyes run over the interiors of the newly restored rooms in the basement of the castle, I am most discomforted by the lack of coving. To my eyes, a sharp 90 degree angle between the wall and the ceiling is the biggest "tell" that this is a modern interior rather than an antique one. 

The basement suffered the most water damage, so many of the rooms were back to bare stone walls and bare earth floors, so there was no coving to preserve or copy, and we have restored so far without coving. However, coving on each floor of the castle is generally the same, and there were some surviving sections in the basement, particularly in the butler's pantry, so there is little issue as to the style of what we should be puting back.

We are moving towards completion with the female servant's sitting room and as there is zero surviving coving in here, I realised that what we put back didn't have to be a exact match for anything, but just had to capture the right feel.

There is a little coving in the adjointing circular turret room so this was a good start. I do not know if there is any systematic way of descriping coving, but I would describe this as "cut, in, cut, out, in, cut". So going from the bottom to the top, you say if there is a sharp edge ("cut"), a curve that goes in ("in") or a curve that goes out ("out").

surviving coving in basement turret room - "cut, in, cut, out, in, cut"

Gregor alerted me to the fact that Screwfix does coving. I was somewhat surprised, but perhaps sourcing coving was going to be easier than I expected? It turns out Toolstation and B&Q do coving as well. Doing some internet research revealed most of this coving is manufactured in Slovakia by a Belgian company called Orac, and that this coving is actually plastic. Plastic is not an issue for me, geting close to the original coving shape is.

In the whole Orac range, only two covings were "cut, in, cut, out, in, cut" : C325 Manoir (£25.42/m)  and CB503N (£7.42/m) . Gregor reckoned the female sevants' sitting room would need a staggering 40m of coving. Identifying these 2 products took a whole evening of looking at literally hundreds of different coving shapes. It was a whole new world. It seemed like either would do, so the one that was under a third of the price of the other was the obvious candidate. However, Gregor advised getting samples before going ahead. I am so pleased I did!

C325 | Manoir

CB503N

The cheaper coving was made from something just a little better than polystyrene - I could make a mark with my thumbnail and the mouldings looked weak and did not have the same light and shade effect as the more expensive moulding where the "cut" in the centre was quite distinct. It would appear the term for this is "fragmented" coving.

Oh noes, the more expensive coving was the only one I was happy with, not only was the cut correctly in the centre but the cut showed up clearly and also I could not stick my thumbnail into this coving. I had to re-evaulate the situation.

It is the cut that makes coving look classy, and the more expensive coving showed clearer light and dark areas, and at the end of the day, that is what coving is i.e. it is to create classy patterns of light and shade. Perhaps, I should look for a plaster product and even though fewer patterns would be available off the shelf, I could locate a mould that maybe was not exact but had all the key elements of a quality Balintore cornice.

I located a plaster coving company online called The Plasterware Store, and indentified two products of theirs that channeled Balintore:  c32 | Hampshire and c15 | Gothic . The first is an almost literal channel but with a reversed ogee curve (i.e. in and out swapped in one location) ie, "cut, in, cut, in, out, cut".  The second channels the gothic quality of Balintore but is not an original design in any way. The samples that arrived through he post were a totally different animal to plastic coving. While they are a little too large, I would be happy to install either, but will go with Hampshire in the female servants sitting room.

top-to-bottom, left-to-right: Gothic, Hampshire, Manoir, CB503N

left-to-right: Gothic, Hampshire, CB503N, Manoir

So, the lesson here is to go for plaster coving not plastic. It appears to be superior on all fronts and not as expensive as the rigid plastic mouldings. It also supports the local plasterworks throughout the UK. Going for polystyrene mouldings is the cheapest option of course, but the appearance is poor in my opinion.