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We've just removed the sliding door wardrobe that was installed down one side of our bedroom. In doing so, we uncovered some cracked plaster cornice. This appears to have been the result of historical settling (as noted in the Home Report, the house is a victorian semi). It does not appear that there is any structural cause for concern ATM. The wardrobe appears to have been in for a couple of decades at least. Some of the cracks at upto 5mm in width and run along the profile of the cornice, there is one particularly bad bit that runs vertically, it appears to sit lower than the rest by around 5-10mm.
Having give the whole thing a bit of a poke last night, it mostly appears to be solid. The rest of the ceiling is in reasonable condition (albeit papered with woodchip) 🙁
So I'm wondering what sort of price might be reasonable to replace to cornice and skim the ceiling. Funds are pretty tight, so it may end up being a patch job until we can do it properly, in which case, any tips on how to fill the gaps/make good? It's not an overly decorative design, so should be reasonably straightforward to work on.
Skimming a ceiling would cost £100-£150 if you find a willing plasterer with a spare half day. Had most of ours skimmed and it was pretty cheap.
If its old plaster on the ceiling watch out for the added weight of new skim bringing the whole lot down. Might be only the woodchip that's holding it all together (like in my house..)
How about boarding over the lot and re-skimming? Victorian ceilings are usually high enough that the loss of an inch or two won't matter. In the upstairs rooms you could even use insulated board or board with some Cellotex above.
Yeah we've had some skim doing downstairs, but this is a bit more involved.
Boarding over isn't really an option either, not least because I'm sure the price of materials + new cornice and skim will be much less that repairing/restoration of what we already have. But also, the front of the room has a ledge from the bottom of the cornice to the front wall (hard to explain as I don't know what it's called. Basically the cornice steps down to another bit of ceiling that then joins the wall.)
There are firms who can reproduce that cornice but I bet it's expensive.
I can't help you on price. I can tell you who did ours if you are in Newcastle?
In ours a large section fell down when we replaced the windows. The builders plasterer replaced and repaired it along with other sections. He made a wooden tool from existing coving so that he could drag it over and match the shape. This, rather than having it !atched offsite was cheaper and you genuinely can't tell what is new and what is old. From memory cost about £150 which was basically the time it took to build the tool and plaster.
Hard part would be finding someone good who likes to work on old houses.