Cornice Repair & Installation in Perth

Most of the time, yes. Standard cove, shadowline, square set and stepped profiles are straightforward, and ornate profiles can usually be matched or recreated from a section of the original.

The catch is that profiles which look identical in a photo often are not. Cove cornice in particular comes in several sizes, and a 90mm run beside a 75mm run looks wrong to people who could not tell you why. That is why we measure the existing cornice rather than ordering from a description.

For older Perth homes where a profile is no longer manufactured, we take a section, match it and have the replacement made rather than substituting the nearest modern equivalent.

It depends on the length involved, the profile and how much matching is needed, and you get a fixed written quote before anything starts.

A short damaged run in one room is a very different job to replacing cornice through a whole house, and ornate work costs more than a standard cove because the matching takes time rather than because the material does.

Our minimum for any small plaster repair is $700 before painting. We are not the cheapest and do not pretend to be.

Most targeted repairs are half a day to a day including the finishing. A full run through a room takes longer, and drying time between coats is what sets the pace.

Plaster has to dry properly between coats or the join shows up later, so a job that is technically two hours of work is often spread across a couple of visits.

Where cornice is going in as part of a larger ceiling job it happens in sequence with the rest of the work rather than as a separate trip.

A damaged section can be patched and blended into the existing run in most cases, so you are not paying to replace cornice that is perfectly good.

The exception is where the existing profile cannot be matched at all, or where the run has been damaged in enough places that a series of repairs would end up costing more than doing the room.

We will tell you which of those you are looking at before quoting, including when the smaller job is the right one.

Once set, sanded and painted, a properly matched cornice repair disappears. The profile is matched and the joins are feathered so the eye has nothing to catch on.

What does show is a mismatched profile or a join placed in the middle of a wall where the light runs along it. Joins go where they can be hidden, at a corner or a natural break, rather than wherever is convenient.

Painting is a separate job, and where new cornice meets old wall the wall will want repainting to finish it properly.

Yes, and we restore rather than replace it. Character homes around Perth carry ornate cornice and ceiling roses that are worth keeping.

Swapping period detail for a plain modern profile visibly cheapens a room, and it cannot be undone. Where an original run is damaged we take a section, match the profile and cast or source a replacement so the repair reads as part of the original.

The other common loss is decades of paint filling in the detail. Stripping that back so the profile reads again is part of the work.