Mouldings and cornices in Batumi: installation and painting

What we make mouldings from

By default we fit cornices and mouldings in polyurethane: it doesn't absorb water, holds with adhesive alone, without mechanical fixings, and doesn't dent from an accidental knock. We use plaster and polystyrene only on request and only in dry rooms.

Fixing with adhesive

We glue mouldings to a prepared surface: skimmed, primed and free of dust. Adhesive won't hold on whitewash or old chalk-based paint, so we strip them in a band where the element will go. The elements spend a day or two in the room where they will be fitted.

Polyurethane goes up on mounting adhesive from the same system as the mouldings. The joints are also coated with joint adhesive: without it, the seam on a long wall opens over time, especially by a window, where the sun heats the cornice. Corners are cut at 45° in a mitre box, or we use ready-made corner pieces. A long cornice is held in place with panel pins while the adhesive sets, and the holes are filled afterwards.

Plaster mouldings go up on gypsum mounting adhesive, and heavy cornices and ceiling roses are also fixed with wall plugs and screws countersunk into the body of the element. Adhesive alone isn't enough for a wide plaster cornice: vibration from a neighbour's hammer drill can make it come away.

A cornice in a new build and under a stretch ceiling

In a new building the floor slab deflects slightly for the first few years, and the junction between wall and ceiling moves. If the cornice is glued to both surfaces, sooner or later a crack will run along one of them. So we glue it only to the wall, and fill the gap between the cornice and the ceiling with a flexible acrylic sealant that is painted along with everything else. If a crack has already appeared under a cornice that was glued to the ceiling as well, we refix it to the wall only and fill the seam with the same sealant.

With a stretch ceiling the rule is the same: the cornice is fixed to the wall and fitted after the film is installed, so that it covers the profile and the service gap. A cornice with a ledge for LED strip gives soft light around the perimeter without a multi-level ceiling. The strip and a place for its power supply go into the lighting plan before installation.

Moulding frames on walls: setting out before gluing

We draw the moulding frames on a wall elevation and transfer them to the wall with a laser level. The setting-out starts from the centre lines of the windows, doors and bed, not from a corner: if the corner is out of plumb, a frame set out from it will run crooked. Sockets and switches have to end up inside a frame or outside it, but not on the line of a moulding, so we check the layout against the electrics.

The height of the lower tier and the spacing between frames are agreed from a sketch. In a small room, slim mouldings and a single cornice are enough, and heavy decoration looks bulky there. How classic and neoclassical interiors cope with the local climate is covered in the section on interior styles.

Filling joints and painting

Once the adhesive is dry, we fill the joints with acrylic sealant or filler, then sand and prime them. Polyurethane is painted with the same water-based paint as the walls. Polystyrene is painted only with water-based paint: the solvent in enamels and some primers eats into it. Plaster is given a deep-penetrating primer before painting, otherwise it absorbs the paint unevenly and the detail goes patchy.

If the mouldings are the same colour as the wall, it is easier to glue them before the final coat and paint the wall and the decoration in one go, and then the join disappears. For a contrasting colour we paint the mouldings separately and run the edge with the wall along masking tape. We agree this order with the crew doing the wall painting.

The cost of mouldings and cornices in Batumi

Moulding and ceiling cornice installation costs from 15 to 24 ₾ per linear metre. This is labour: setting out, cutting, adhesive and filling the joints, while the elements themselves are bought separately. As a guide to materials, polyurethane mouldings cost from 34 to 60 ₾ per metre, and polystyrene ones from 3.5 to 6 ₾. Plaster mouldings cost from 115 to 180 ₾ per linear metre installed, because they go up on adhesive and fixings and are fitted on site. Painting mouldings adds from 10 to 14 ₾ per metre.

The price goes up with frames that have many corners, curved walls and lighting in the cornice. The cheapest option is a straight cornice around the perimeter of a room with no projections. The final cost is set after the site measurement and once the estimate is agreed.

How to check a cornice and frames

We check the cornice and frames with a laser level. The line must run straight even if the ceiling or wall is slightly out of true, and the gap this leaves is filled with sealant and painted over. After painting, the joints can't be seen close up or in side light, the corners meet without a gap, and no element comes away when you run your palm along it.

We leave a couple of whole elements from the same batch in the apartment. The collection may be discontinued in a few years, and a piece of cornice damaged when a wardrobe is installed can then be replaced with the same profile.