Scaffold and containment quoted inside every job — the street stays open, the pigeons stay out, the dust stays sheeted. (555) 047-5526 · shop@thecorniceroom.example
Munrowe & Chantry Green, 2023 — 2026
Restorations from the room
Six buildings from last season’s ledger. In every photograph, at least half of what you see was made in our shop to match what survived — that is the definition of the work.
Run in place
A cornice was never made in pieces — it was dragged. We cut the profile off the surviving run, mill a matching mould on a steel template, and drag wet plaster along a screed exactly as the original plasterers did: same gesture, same joints, same building. A run cornice has no seams to fail, which is why the 1880s ones outlived everything bolted on since.
Cast & set
The enrichments — urns, brackets, dentils, rosettes — were cast in a shop and pinned to the run. Ours are too: silicone moulds taken from the best survivors on the building, cast in a body matched to the original, and set on stainless pins through to the structure. A cast that reads as new from the sidewalk is a cast that was rushed; the shop is slow on purpose.
Services & rates
The profile card
Rates from the last three civic seasons in Munrowe and Chantry Green. Scaffold, containment and access are quoted inside the job, not added after the board approves; grant-funded phasing is normal work for us and the card is laid out to be paid in order of urgency.
Cornice, re-run in place$46–90 / lin ft
Profile lifted from the surviving run, mould milled, dragged in lime plaster on a screed — joints like the original, none at all if we are lucky
Detail replication, cast$240 / model
Silicone moulds off the surviving units; urns, brackets, stops and rosettes cast in matching lime or gypsum, pinned stainless — $60–140 per cast after the model
Parapet & balustrade restoration$34 / lin ft
Sound units re-pointed in lime, failed units recast, the run re-pinned through to the structure
Ornamental lime repointing$28 / lin ft
Joints raked by hand — never a grinder — and repointed in a putty matched to the building’s own sand
Ceiling flatwork & centre piecesfrom $18 / sq ft
Run ornamental ceilings stabilised, missing enrichment re-cast from the room’s profile library
Survey & conditions report$1,400 flat
Elevation-by-elevation photo record, sounding of every run, triage list in cost order — written for boards and grant applications
How it goes
From survey to gild
The same sequence on every job — the only variable is your project.
Weeks 1–2
The survey
Every elevation sounded and photographed from the scaffold, every run mapped to its condition. The triage list comes back in cost order — what the building needs this year, what it can negotiate with, and what it is lying about.
Weeks 3–4
Moulds off the survivors
Silicone taken from the best surviving units, profiles lifted from intact runs, the shop’s 1,100-profile library searched for the building’s twins where nothing survives to copy. Missing teeth are modelled from the pattern of the ones that remain.
Weeks 5–8
The shop casts
Casting in lime or gypsum to match the original body, stainless pins and washers set into every unit over a pound. The shop is slow on purpose — a cast rushed is a cast that reads as new from the street.
Weeks 9–12
Set, run & pin
Cornices dragged in place on screeds, casts set and pinned back to structure, parapets re-pointed in matched putty. The street stays open below; the containment keeps the pigeons unemployed.
The last week
Lime wash & gild
Breathing lime wash matched to the building’s patina — never flat paint, which traps the moisture that caused the decay — and where the scheme calls for it, gold size and leaf re-laid on the enriched runs. The scaffold comes down to a building that looks like itself again.
The estimate to replace our cornice in fibreglass was a third cheaper and the heritage officer’s face said everything. The Cornice Room re-ran 210 feet in place, cast the eleven missing brackets off the three that survived, and matched the lime so well you cannot tell this century’s work from the last two. The grant panel called the conditions report "the most complete they had seen." The building is 130 and has never looked younger.
The room, in figures
The pinning warranty
Everything we set is pinned back to structure in stainless, and everything we cast is matched to the body of the building it joins. Five years on materials and pinning, with a free sounding survey at year three — because the honest test of ornamental work is the weather’s opinion, gathered over time.
Three of our urns survived the 1998 storm and one contractor told us to "go fibreglass and move on." The Cornice Room cast eleven new urns off the survivors and we challenge anyone to say which three are old. The re-pointing alone bought the parapet fifty years.
Our dentil run was a puzzle with one tooth left. They modelled the missing tooth from the shadow lines the originals left on the wall — I did not know that was possible — and the shop cast the run in batches through the spring. From the sidewalk it is 1907 again, and the scaffold never closed the entrance.
The reading room ceiling was shedding enrichment onto the desks and our insurer was writing letters. The conditions report ended the argument, the phasing let us pay across two budget years, and the flatwork is silent again. They even matched the putty to our own sand, which they dug from the wall to find.
Asked in vestry meetings
The five that boards, vestries and trustees ask first. The shop line answers the rest, between scaffold seasons.
Can you match detail that is entirely gone?
Usually. Buildings repeat themselves — the same builder, the same pattern book, the same year. We search the room’s 1,100 profiles for the building’s twins; where none exists, we model from the shadow lines and fixings the originals left behind, and the drawings go to the board before any plaster is mixed. The evidence is in the survey section of every report.
Lime or gypsum — which is right for our building?
The building decides, and the answer is often both. Exterior ornamental work takes lime — it breathes, it flexes with the seasons, and it is what the original runs were dragged in. Interior enrichment is frequently gypsum, which sets harder and takes finer detail. We sample the surviving material and match the body, because a repair in the wrong material is a repair that ages at a different speed than the wall around it.
How do you handle services and structure behind the ornament?
Every survey maps what is behind the runs before anything opens — the scaffold carries the load, the pins find structure, not plaster, and where rotted framing or old wiring hides behind a cornice we photograph it, price it and hand it to the right trade rather than burying it. Boards hate surprises more than costs; the report is built so there are none.
Can a phased restoration work for our budget?
It is how most of them run. The triage list is written in cost order against urgency, grant panels fund phases cleanly from it, and each phase closes the building back up weather-tight before the scaffold comes down. The Munrowe courthouse ran three phases across four years; the profile card was designed for exactly that rhythm.
Why not just paint over the ornament?
Because flat paint on lime ornament is how ornament dies — it seals the moisture in, the freeze-thaw pops the enrichment off in sheets, and in ten years you are quoting replacement instead of repainting. We finish in breathing lime wash matched to the patina. The ornament keeps its shadows, and the wall keeps its life.
Tell us about the building
Name it if it is public — the room may already hold its profile. What is falling, what is threatened, and when the board next meets. The $1,400 conditions report is written for grant panels in cost order, and most restorations start exactly there. shop@thecorniceroom.example