Rossendale, BB4, OL13
Coving and decorative cornice fitted, mitred and jointed, including matching original period profiles.
10/10
From 69 Checkatrade reviews
Free
Quotes, with no call-out charge
2020
Checkatrade member since
Local
Rossendale based, Lancashire wide
Coving and Cornice is regular work in Rossendale, and it is regular for a reason. Stone terraces and mill cottages climbing steep valley sides, solid wall construction throughout, with high exposure to wind-driven rain in the upper valley. Those conditions produce the same handful of problems again and again, which after a few hundred of them means Lee is quoting from experience of your actual house type rather than from a rate card.
Coving does two jobs at once, and most people only think about one of them. The obvious one is decorative: it finishes a room off and stops a plain ceiling meeting a plain wall in a hard line. The less obvious one is practical: that junction is precisely where seasonal movement in a building concentrates, and a cove absorbs the small movement that would otherwise show up as a crack along the top of every wall.
Getting the sequencing right saves money. Coving goes on after plastering and before decorating. Fitting it before the walls are skimmed means the plasterer has to work up to an edge that is already fixed, and fitting it after decorating means making good paintwork you have just paid for. It is a small thing that is easy to get wrong when several trades are booked around each other.
What that means for a Rossendale job in practice is that the quote follows the property rather than a rate per square metre. Two houses on the same street can be very different jobs once you know what is behind the surface, and coving and cornice is one of the areas where that gap is widest. Lee looks first, prices second, and tells you which of the two you have got.
The valley's housing tells the story of the cotton and slipper trades that built it. Long runs of stone terraces climbing the valley sides, mill workers' cottages in the older cores, and later twentieth-century estates filling the flatter ground. What almost all of it shares is solid stone construction without a cavity, and a good deal of exposure to weather funnelling down the valley. Both facts change how plaster and render behave here compared with a sheltered lowland town.
Exposure is the part that outside contractors underestimate. The upper valley towards Bacup and Weir catches wind-driven rain for weeks on end, and the freeze-thaw cycle works hard on anything that holds water. That is why render specification matters so much here, and why a dense cement render slapped onto an old breathable stone wall causes more problems inside the house than it solves outside it.
Before you book anything: Priced by the metre plus the profile chosen, since a deep decorative cornice is considerably more work to fit and joint than a plain cove. A single room is usually a day, sometimes less for a plain profile in a square room. Rossendale is well within the area covered, as are Waterfoot, Whitworth, Helmshore. If Lee thinks you need less work than you have asked for, he will say so. That happens often enough that it is worth stating plainly rather than leaving it as an implication.
Rossendale at a glance
- Postcodes
- BB4, OL13
- District
- Rossendale, Lancashire
- Also covered from here
- Waterfoot, Whitworth, Helmshore, Edenfield, Stacksteads, Weir, Britannia, Loveclough
- Typical timescale
- A single room is usually a day, sometimes less for a plain profile in a square room.
What is included
- Plain coving fitted, mitred and jointed so seams disappear
- Decorative cornice in period rooms
- Original profiles matched where a section has been lost or damaged
- Corners cut accurately rather than filled to hide a bad mitre
- Fitted at the right point in the sequence, after plaster and before paint
- Cracked and sagging existing coving repaired or replaced
Local proof
- Home groundThe valley is where Lee is based. Rossendale jobs get the quickest quotes and the shortest lead times.
- Whole valley coveredRawtenstall, Haslingden, Bacup, Waterfoot, Whitworth and every village along the way.
- Weather understoodRender here gets specified for real Pennine exposure, not for a sheltered site down south.
Common questions
Coving In Rossendale: Your Questions
Ten questions people in Rossendale actually ask about coving and cornice, answered straight.
How much does coving and cornice cost in Rossendale?
Priced by the metre plus the profile chosen, since a deep decorative cornice is considerably more work to fit and joint than a plain cove. In Rossendale specifically, the biggest variable is the background: stone terraces and mill cottages climbing steep valley sides, solid wall construction throughout, with high exposure to wind-driven rain in the upper valley. That is why Lee quotes off a look or a photo rather than a price list. Quotes are free and there is no call-out charge.
How long does coving and cornice take in a Rossendale property?
A single room is usually a day, sometimes less for a plain profile in a square room. Older Rossendale properties can take a little longer than that because the preparation is heavier, and you will be told which category yours falls into when the quote is given rather than discovering it partway through.
Do you cover the areas around Rossendale?
Yes. Waterfoot, Whitworth, Helmshore, Edenfield, Stacksteads, Weir, Britannia, Loveclough are all covered from the same rounds as Rossendale, along with the neighbouring towns. LD Plastering works out of Rossendale, so this is a genuine local patch rather than a national firm with a local phone number.
Is coving and cornice the right job for my Rossendale house?
Coving and cornice run along the junction between wall and ceiling, covering the joint and adding a finished detail to the room. LD Plastering fits plain coving and decorative cornice across East Lancashire, including matching original profiles in older Rossendale and Burnley properties where a section has been damaged or lost. Whether it suits your property depends on what is behind the wall, and in Rossendale that means stone terraces and mill cottages climbing steep valley sides, solid wall construction throughout, with high exposure to wind-driven rain in the upper valley. Lee will tell you if a different or smaller job would serve you better.
Does coving stop cracks along the ceiling?
It handles the small seasonal movement that causes most hairline cracking at the wall and ceiling junction, which is the most common place for it in an older house. It will not hide or fix cracking caused by genuine structural movement, and that wants investigating rather than covering.
Should coving go up before or after plastering?
After the plastering and before the decorating. That order means the plasterer works to a clean junction, the coving beds onto a finished surface, and you are not making good fresh paintwork afterwards.
Can you match the original cornice in my period house?
Often yes. Where a surviving run exists elsewhere in the room or the house, the profile can be taken from it and reproduced so a repaired section follows the original. Where nothing survives to copy, the honest option is choosing the closest available profile and being upfront that it is a close match rather than the original.
Can you do both the plastering and the painting?
Yes. Having one tradesman see it through from bare wall to finished room removes the usual three-week wait for a decorator, and new plaster gets the mist coat it needs rather than full-strength emulsion straight onto it.
Will you tell me if I do not need the work doing?
Yes, and it happens fairly often. Where a wall genuinely only needs a patch, that is what gets recommended. Where damp is coming from guttering rather than the wall, you will be told to fix the gutter rather than sold a reskim that hides it for one season.
Which Rossendale towns do you cover?
All of them. Rawtenstall, Haslingden, Bacup, Waterfoot, Stacksteads, Whitworth, Helmshore, Edenfield, Weir, Britannia and the villages between. The valley is home ground rather than an outlying area.
Looking for something else in this town? See everything Lee does in Rossendale.
Other work in Rossendale
Coving nearby
Coving In Rossendale?
Tell Lee what needs doing and where in Rossendale you are, and you will get an honest figure back, usually the same day. Free, no obligation, no call-out charge.