Coving with wonky ceiling - follow ceiling or put up level?
 

Hi there. We *were* planning to put coving up in our lounge.

As per the instructions we have just drawn a level line on the top of
the walls all the way around the room... and discovered there is a 5cm
difference between the place where the ceiling is lowest and where the
ceiling is highest.

So if we put the coving up level, on some parts of the room there will
need to be 5cm filled above the coving. I'm worried this will look at
bit odd. But then if we put the coving up to follow the ceiling it
will be wonky too and that might look odd.

Should we put the coving up level, or following the ceiling, or not
put it up at all?

The house is old-ish (1900s) so nothing is very level (eg the window
recesses), though we've just had the floor redone so that is level now.

Coving with wonky ceiling - follow ceiling or put up level?
 

Clare wrote:
Hi there. We *were* planning to put coving up in our lounge.

As per the instructions we have just drawn a level line on the top of
the walls all the way around the room... and discovered there is a 5cm
difference between the place where the ceiling is lowest and where the
ceiling is highest.

So if we put the coving up level, on some parts of the room there will
need to be 5cm filled above the coving. I'm worried this will look at
bit odd. But then if we put the coving up to follow the ceiling it
will be wonky too and that might look odd.

Should we put the coving up level, or following the ceiling, or not
put it up at all?

If you had not noticed that the ceiling was not level before you drew
the line, it is unlikely that you would notice it if the coving were not
either. That is providing, as John says, you put the coving up in
straight lengths and don't try to follow every boggle.

Colin Bignell

Coving with wonky ceiling - follow ceiling or put up level?
 

Nightjar "cpb"@ insertmysurnamehere wrote:
Clare wrote:
Hi there. We *were* planning to put coving up in our lounge.

As per the instructions we have just drawn a level line on the top of
the walls all the way around the room... and discovered there is a 5cm
difference between the place where the ceiling is lowest and where the
ceiling is highest.

So if we put the coving up level, on some parts of the room there will
need to be 5cm filled above the coving. I'm worried this will look at
bit odd. But then if we put the coving up to follow the ceiling it
will be wonky too and that might look odd.

Should we put the coving up level, or following the ceiling, or not
put it up at all?

If you had not noticed that the ceiling was not level before you drew
the line, it is unlikely that you would notice it if the coving were not
either. That is providing, as John says, you put the coving up in
straight lengths and don't try to follow every boggle.

Colin Bignell

I'd put it up perfectly straight and fill the rest. IME no amount of
filler shows once painted, but wonky coving does.

Coving with wonky ceiling - follow ceiling or put up level?
 

In article
,
Clare wrote:
Hi there. We *were* planning to put coving up in our lounge.

As per the instructions we have just drawn a level line on the top of
the walls all the way around the room... and discovered there is a 5cm
difference between the place where the ceiling is lowest and where the
ceiling is highest.

So if we put the coving up level, on some parts of the room there will
need to be 5cm filled above the coving. I'm worried this will look at
bit odd. But then if we put the coving up to follow the ceiling it
will be wonky too and that might look odd.

Should we put the coving up level, or following the ceiling, or not
put it up at all?

The house is old-ish (1900s) so nothing is very level (eg the window
recesses), though we've just had the floor redone so that is level now.

I'd follow the line of the ceiling as best you can. In real life if the
ceiling had sagged with coving installed from new it would have sagged
too.

--
*I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Coving with wonky ceiling - follow ceiling or put up level?
 

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article
,
Clare wrote:
Hi there. We *were* planning to put coving up in our lounge.

As per the instructions we have just drawn a level line on the top of
the walls all the way around the room... and discovered there is a 5cm
difference between the place where the ceiling is lowest and where the
ceiling is highest.

So if we put the coving up level, on some parts of the room there will
need to be 5cm filled above the coving. I'm worried this will look at
bit odd. But then if we put the coving up to follow the ceiling it
will be wonky too and that might look odd.

Should we put the coving up level, or following the ceiling, or not
put it up at all?

The house is old-ish (1900s) so nothing is very level (eg the window
recesses), though we've just had the floor redone so that is level now.

I'd follow the line of the ceiling as best you can. In real life if the
ceiling had sagged with coving installed from new it would have sagged
too.

Whether it's sagged or just poor initial workmanship, I'd disagree. When
we tiled our bathroom to the ceiling I first looked at cutting a row of
tiles in complex ways until I realised that skimming the ceiling would
be far quicker. The result fully justified the decision.

Douglas de Lacey

Coving with wonky ceiling - follow ceiling or put up level?
 

On 29 Mar, 00:15, Clare wrote:
Hi there. *We *were* planning to put coving up in our lounge.

As per the instructions we have just drawn a level line on the top of
the walls all the way around the room... and discovered there is a 5cm
difference between the place where the ceiling is lowest and where the
ceiling is highest.

So if we put the coving up level, on some parts of the room there will
need to be 5cm filled above the coving. *I'm worried this will look at
bit odd. *But then if we put the coving up to follow the ceiling it
will be wonky too and that might look odd.

Should we put the coving up level, or following the ceiling, or not
put it up at all?

The house is old-ish (1900s) so nothing is very level (eg the window
recesses), though we've just had the floor redone so that is level now.

By a level line, do you mean a horizontal line. Is there a gradual
rise over the length of the room?
Filling in up to 2 inches is going to look very strange.

If you measure the coving fitting line down from the ceiling, does
that give you a reasonably straight line on each wall even if it isn't
horizontal?If it's a gradual rise from one end to the other rather
than a really wavy ceiling, then the best straight (not horizontal)
line might need only small differences in the thickness of the coving
fixative to cope with any minor waviness. The coving would be straight
but not horizontal, and you might need coving corner pieces to cover
up less than square meeting at corners.

You'd need to chose wallpaper that didn't have a horizontal pattern
lines which would show the rise, but that also
applies to the situation at present without the coving.

Toom

Coving with wonky ceiling - follow ceiling or put up level?
 

On Mon, 29 Mar 2010 02:24:10 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

So, small changes you can sail across the high bits, and fill above the
cove, but for bigger errors - say one side of the room being higher than
the other you need to go with the general ceiling line.

Aye, as with most things do it so it "looks right". Dead level or
vertical rarely looks right even in a modern, relatively accurate
plumb and level, box.

As others have said the the bottom of the cove needs to straight and
follow the general ceiling line. Getting this line on might be tricky
with only tapes, rules or stretched string. A laser "level" that can
project a line onto the wall all thge way round the room makes the
job easier, the ends *will* meet up if nothing else and you can
edjust it to have the cove as high as possible against the low points
of the ceiling.

--
Cheers
Dave.

Coving with wonky ceiling - follow ceiling or put up level?
 

In article ,
Douglas de Lacey wrote:
I'd follow the line of the ceiling as best you can. In real life if the
ceiling had sagged with coving installed from new it would have sagged
too.

Whether it's sagged or just poor initial workmanship, I'd disagree. When
we tiled our bathroom to the ceiling I first looked at cutting a row of
tiles in complex ways until I realised that skimming the ceiling would
be far quicker. The result fully justified the decision.

Think you'd be into rather more than just skimming a 100 year old lounge
ceiling.

--
*A day without sunshine is like... night.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Coving with wonky ceiling - follow ceiling or put up level?
 

Toom Tabard wrote:
On 29 Mar, 00:15, Clare wrote:
Hi there. We *were* planning to put coving up in our lounge.

As per the instructions we have just drawn a level line on the top of
the walls all the way around the room... and discovered there is a 5cm
difference between the place where the ceiling is lowest and where the
ceiling is highest.

So if we put the coving up level, on some parts of the room there will
need to be 5cm filled above the coving. I'm worried this will look at
bit odd. But then if we put the coving up to follow the ceiling it
will be wonky too and that might look odd.

Should we put the coving up level, or following the ceiling, or not
put it up at all?

The house is old-ish (1900s) so nothing is very level (eg the window
recesses), though we've just had the floor redone so that is level now.

By a level line, do you mean a horizontal line. Is there a gradual
rise over the length of the room?
Filling in up to 2 inches is going to look very strange.

I'd still rather have the coving a set distance from the floor. If the
ceiling is the same colour as the cove, I doubt your eye would be drawn
to it. It certainly isn't where gaps behind skirting have been filled,
but 2" might be pushing it a bit

If you measure the coving fitting line down from the ceiling, does
that give you a reasonably straight line on each wall even if it isn't
horizontal?If it's a gradual rise from one end to the other rather
than a really wavy ceiling, then the best straight (not horizontal)
line might need only small differences in the thickness of the coving
fixative to cope with any minor waviness. The coving would be straight
but not horizontal, and you might need coving corner pieces to cover
up less than square meeting at corners.

You'd need to chose wallpaper that didn't have a horizontal pattern
lines which would show the rise, but that also
applies to the situation at present without the coving.

Toom

Coving with wonky ceiling - follow ceiling or put up level?
 

On Mar 29, 11:39*am, Douglas de Lacey wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article
,
* *Clare wrote:
Hi there. *We *were* planning to put coving up in our lounge.

As per the instructions we have just drawn a level line on the top of
the walls all the way around the room... and discovered there is a 5cm
difference between the place where the ceiling is lowest and where the
ceiling is highest.

So if we put the coving up level, on some parts of the room there will
need to be 5cm filled above the coving. *I'm worried this will look at
bit odd. *But then if we put the coving up to follow the ceiling it
will be wonky too and that might look odd.

Should we put the coving up level, or following the ceiling, or not
put it up at all?

The house is old-ish (1900s) so nothing is very level (eg the window
recesses), though we've just had the floor redone so that is level now..

I'd follow the line of the ceiling as best you can. In real life if the
ceiling had sagged with coving installed from new it would have sagged
too.

Whether it's sagged or just poor initial workmanship, I'd disagree. When
we tiled our bathroom to the ceiling I first looked at cutting a row of
tiles in complex ways until I realised that skimming the ceiling would
be far quicker. The result fully justified the decision.

Lots of square tiles with grout lines is (visually) a totally
different situation to coving painter the same colour as the wall or
ceiling.

MBQ

Coving with wonky ceiling - follow ceiling or put up level?
 

On Mar 29, 10:21*am, Huge wrote:
On 2010-03-29, stuart noble wrote:

Nightjar "cpb"@ insertmysurnamehere wrote:
Clare wrote:
Hi there. *We *were* planning to put coving up in our lounge.

As per the instructions we have just drawn a level line on the top of
the walls all the way around the room... and discovered there is a 5cm
difference between the place where the ceiling is lowest and where the
ceiling is highest.
I'd put it up perfectly straight and fill the rest. IME no amount of
filler shows once painted, but wonky coving does.

What he said.

Not. IMHO, 5cm of filled gap would look naff.

MBQ

Coving with wonky ceiling - follow ceiling or put up level?
 

On 3/29/2010 9:55 AM, Man at B&Q wrote:
On Mar 29, 10:21 am, wrote:
On 2010-03-29, stuart wrote:

Nightjar"cpb"@ insertmysurnamehere wrote:
Clare wrote:
Hi there. We *were* planning to put coving up in our lounge.

As per the instructions we have just drawn a level line on the top of
the walls all the way around the room... and discovered there is a 5cm
difference between the place where the ceiling is lowest and where the
ceiling is highest.
I'd put it up perfectly straight and fill the rest. IME no amount of
filler shows once painted, but wonky coving does.

What he said.

Not. IMHO, 5cm of filled gap would look naff.

He said 'straight' - he didn't say 'level'...

Coving with wonky ceiling - follow ceiling or put up level?
 

Thanks for advice so far!

Yes Toom, by level I meant horizontal.

The wonkiness is the sum of both a gradual trend from one side of the
room to the other and more localised peaks and troughs (over distances
of about 2 or 3ft in a 10ft by 10ft room).

Colin you are right, the more localised variation was already quite
obvious. I think it was the extent of the difference from one side of
the room to the other that most surprised us. Which perhaps would
suggest that the advice of following the overall trend but not the
local variations would work best.

Dave's point about how old coving would have moved had there been some
there the same age as the ceiling is a good one.

Cheers,

Clare.