How much to fix this weird plaster thing?

[Christmascookiesmmmm]

Completed a couple months ago, intended to decorate in first month but of course that didn’t happen!!
Now planning on decorate the living room and smoothing out this plaster was going to be on our eventual list of things to do but it’s kind of bugging me and maybe it’s worth doing before we paint the ceiling so we don’t have to repaint at some point?
Wanting to do things as cheaply as possible as the majority of our savings went on our deposit, but I’m thinking there’s no cheap DIY fix here and we’ll need to hire a plasterer- so has anyone fixed similar and know roughly how much it might cost? Thanks in advanced!!

I would ask a quality decorator first as part of the ceiling repaint. My dad was one man and boy and he sorted out a messed up dado rail in my first Victorian house by building up the plaster with filler then rubbing it down. He was very talented and artistic though.

I wouldn’t hesitate to ask my current decorator too who is very old school and can make a lot of rough plaster disappear.

I assume it's damage caused by a previous leak?

Honestly, I'd have the whole ceiling replastered! The panels are very dated. Maybe leave a nice ceiling rose in the middle.

You are looking for a cornice repair specialist who will take a template of the current cornice and run up a length to match, they will then cut out the damaged portion, fit and repair around it.

Not cheap as requires trip to take template, day in workshop then a day to fit, let the plaster dry and then finish off. Dh does this and it will be in excess of £1k.

If it had been caused by water ingress you can claim on insurance.

It’s a beautiful ceiling, it’s be awful to rip it out of its original? If the leak has been resolved I’d just decorate around it and come back to it when you’ve got the money to do a proper job. If you paint it mat white you probably wouldn’t see it as much:

Thanks for all your replies!!

Yes I think a historic leak caused it- it didn’t come up at all in the survey! So assuming I can’t claim since it didn’t happen while we were in the house.

Yes I definitely don’t want to rip it out- fairly sure it’s all original as house was built 1907 and still has all the original fireplaces from when it was built so I assume this is original too, and I really love it actually, it really works in the room and is one of the things I love about the room! Was going to paint white and then maybe inside the panels a different shade of grey perhaps so that might make it look a bit more modern too.

I think I’ll do as suggested and paint Matt white and see if that makes it less noticeable.

1k was I suppose the top end of what I was expecting as I know it’s a skilled job. We are planning to paint everything ourselves to save money but I guess I could get someone in to give a quote.

Thanks all :)

It’s a bit of a faf.

But there are sites on the net which match plaster.
You need to take a fine sharp saw to a good piece of coving, cut out a straight line. Stick a piece of cardboard in the gap and trace the coving.

Send off the cardboard and they’ll send you as much matched coving as you like.

It’s usually £80- £150 to make metal mould and set up and £50-£120 per 2.5 metres of coving there after.

Will work out much cheaper if you’re doing a few repairs. But there will be small join marks you’ll have to feather in. But as it’s orginal ceiling if it’s anything like mine you’ll have expansion cracks in it every season anyway.

But all this depends if you know a decent plasters. Otherwise it’s a specialist and they don’t come cheap.
The ono firm around here wasn't interested in small repairs. They said they usually do weeks long hertiage projects so weren’t interested in a days work... To quote “I’ll be charging you more than it would cost to replace the whole ceiling” but I’m sure that’s just the company I dealt with.

We are having a similar repair done in Yorkshire and it is £700. I think you could easily get it repaired for less that £1000

dh is in and asked him. To fix properly it looks like some of the ceiling needs to come down too around the area (you would be able to tell if you pressed your hand onto it, it will move). Once the ceiling is down you would see if the timbers behind are ok/have any rot. Would probably mean there would need to be cornice and ceiling templates made and then fitted. He reckons around £900-£1k.

If you just want it tided up some plasterers might fill/sand down and make it look a bit better for a couple of hundred, but that wont fix your damaged ceiling (if its moving).

He says he sees it all the time people have put quotes into insurance for older damage they've tried to fill/paint over. You could wait a year and claim for water damage as loss adjustors rarely come out when its low cost (in his experience/Scotland).

He says you can tell if its original by digging into it with a screwdriver, modern plaster mouldings are made of white plaster. Older ones would be old lime plaster and will be a darker colour under the paint.

Your surveyor should have spotted something that obvious - perhaps you should consider putting in s claim against them.

This will be traditional lathe and plaster construction which would need to be replaced like for like. But firstly carefully find out whether it needs to be replaced at all. Then if you do it should copy the original.

Having just done some similar remedial work (larger area but less intricate design as just straight coving along a wall), depending on how much needs doing I agree in the high hundreds (plus VAT). Would also suggest if you can having a plaster specialist look at it (I can recommend a great one if you happen to be in the central belt of Scotland). And for the love of Christ DON’T take that ceiling down, it’s such an asset, you are so lucky.