Coving & Cornice

What does coving cost per room in 2026?

Fitting standard plaster coving — a 127mm C-profile is the common choice — costs around £200–£350 per room including materials, depending on room size and how many external mitres the walls throw up. Larger profiles, bay windows and chimney breasts add to the cutting time and nudge the price upward.

The quote is fixed per room, not hourly, and includes scribing to walls that are not straight (most walls), filling the joints and leaving the moulding paint-ready. Several rooms in one visit brings the per-room figure down, because setting up once serves the whole job.

Two things move the price honestly: genuine plaster coving costs more than paper-faced or polystyrene alternatives, and ceilings in poor condition sometimes need attention first — there is little point fixing crisp new coving to the edge of a ceiling that needs repair work.

Can you match or restore a period cornice?

Yes. A damaged or missing section of period cornice can be matched by taking a squeeze — a mould — from a sound stretch of the original, then casting or running new lengths to the same profile. Fitted and blended in, the repair reads as continuous original work rather than an obvious patch.

The common jobs around the Victorian terraces of Surbiton, Kingston and Thames Ditton: a run lost to a past partition, sections brought down by a leak from above, and detail so clogged by a dozen coats of paint that the crispness has gone. Clogged enrichment can often be carefully cleaned back rather than replaced.

For simple profiles we run new sections in situ, the traditional way, with a zinc template cut to the original shape; enriched or deep cornices are cast from the squeeze in workshop conditions. In listed cottages toward Guildford, Farnham and Godalming we work in lime to match the original material — the same approach as our heritage lime plastering, applied to the mouldings.

Plaster coving or polystyrene: why the material matters

Plaster coving is heavier, sharper and permanent: it takes paint like the wall around it, its arrises stay crisp, and once fixed with adhesive and screws where needed it becomes part of the building. Polystyrene and lightweight foam covings are cheaper and easier to stick up — and they look exactly that.

The differences show at the joints and in the light. Foam coving dents with a fingernail, its mitres never quite close, and emulsion sits on it with a slightly plastic sheen that reads wrong next to plastered walls. Plaster coving is scribed, mitred and filled so the whole run reads as one continuous moulding.

Paper-faced gypsum covings sit in between and have their place in rentals and quick refurbishments — we fit them where the budget calls for it. But against a polished plaster feature wall or any decent decoration scheme, foam coving is a false economy that undermines everything around it.

How are ceiling roses fitted and restored?

New plaster ceiling roses cost from around £80–£150 fitted, depending on size and weight. Anything beyond the smallest rose is fixed with adhesive plus screws into the joists or noggins above — never adhesive alone — because a plaster rose is a real weight to have over a bed or a dining table.

Fitting starts above the ceiling, not below it: we locate the joists, confirm what the fixing will bite into, and coordinate around the light position — reconnecting the fitting itself is one for your electrician. The rose is bedded, screwed and made good so it reads as cast into the ceiling.

Original roses in period homes are usually worth saving: like cornice, most have lost their detail to paint rather than damage, and careful cleaning brings the crispness back. Where one is beyond rescue, we match a replacement to the room's cornice and period.