design – Carlow Cornice

Update your sun room

On a sunny day like today all you want to do is to be outside. Unfortunately all days are not like this, summer can sometimes feel more like monsoon season on Ireland. So how do you create that outdoors-indoors feeling. Sun rooms are still popular both on new builds and as an extension, but often they feel like a flat pack with no character. Why not get some standout features and turn it too a beautiful room, fit for any purpose? Take a look below for some great inspo (all pictures from pinterest.com)

What a dream! This is more like an orangerie, taking you back to colonial India

Add a Gothic feel with the vaulted dome for a real WOW factor. We can make besopke mouldings for your purpose if you don't happen to have an excellent wood carver at hand — Add a Gothic feel with the vaulted dome for a real WOW factor. We can make besopke mouldings for your purpose if you don’t happen to have an excellent wood carver at hand

For a more modern touch, but non the less impressive, the skylights gives you all the air and light you need and the cornice and panel works gives you a real indoor feel

Want it greener? Team cornice and panel work with a green lush colour and plenty of low maintenance potted plants

Who says it must be off kitchen? I'd love it if this was my home office — Who says it must be off kitchen? I’d love it if this was my home office

Out of space? You can still have the sun room of your dreams, the painted wood and white panels makes this as elegant as any New England porch

Speaking of New England, why not go all in? French doors, naked hard wood floor and light blue

10 most beautiful ceilings in the world

A ceiling can be so much more than just a white page, it’s a blank canvas! Here at Carlow Cornice we can help you pick out Centerpieces and Cornice to make your ceiling a focal point in your home, and with the use of paneling work, the only limitation is your imagination.

The BBC listed the 10 most beautiful ceilings in the world during the week, and it’s definitely worth to look it up. See full article here.

Unfortunately none of the beautiful ceilings around Ireland made the list, but there are so much excellent plaster work all around the island. Much of this is getting restored today and we are very proud to be a part of conserving that cultural heritage

BBC1 — Castello di Sammezzano, Leccio, Italy

BBC3 — Solna Centrum Metro Station, Stockholm

BBC6 — Nine Bridges Golf Club, Yeoju-gun, South Korea

BBC7 — Heydar Aliyev Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan

BBC9 — Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, Temple of Heaven, Beijing

DOORS!

At Carlow Cornice we don’t only look after the decorative measure of the inside of your house but also the outside. As St Patrick’s day went under way yesterday I was thinking of all the beautiful doors and that can be seen in Dublin. And I was thinking of all the posters, post cards and books sold depicting theses Georgian Masterpieces. In Stockholm there is even a pub called The Doors in celebration of this!

Carlow Cornice provides plaster and fibrous cement for external mouldings. We can restore or make a new design to your liking for the elegance of the past or to restore your home, contact us to see how we can help you.

Black Friday – Black plaster

As the Black Friday sales seems to be the hot topic of the day I put together some inspirational pictures of how to use black Cornice, Centrepieces and Plaster mouldings. I hope you find something you like, and if you’re not keen on the black, plaster can be painted in any colour you like

All pictures are found on Pinterest, great for inspiration for absolutely everything, find us there as Carlow Cornice.

Starting off with some opulent eastern dreams…

I love how you can see the dark blue sky through the ceiling details.

Here’s a more classic, gothic style ceiling, I really think the fine details striking in black

This is my favorite of the week, I have a real hankering for trying something similar, it’s nearly as if the Centrepieces have melted together. Love how the photo is taken in the mirror.

I admit, this is cheating, it’s in charcoal rather than black, but it was too nice not to add!

Such as cozy room, black isn’t only for the modern look, it’s a great frame for any room, no matter what style

Cornice is often left out of the bathroom, it’s such a shame, just see how stylish this finish is.

And for the last pic, something very modern. If you like spots or strip lights we can encase them in a design of your choice, and why not elongate space by giving it a contrasting colour.

Preparing for Halloween

In order to get ready for Halloween Carlow Cornice & Mouldings has dived deep in to the dark depths of the internet to find some pretty scary places, with beautiful cornice, centrepieces and plaster work.

This is Denbigh Asylum, or North Wales Hospital, completed in 1848 it could room 200 patients with psychiatric illnesses. Victorian asylums is frequently featured in horror movies and novels, I can’t help to be fascinated by the beauty of the architecture in the places were they put to most marginalized people in society. As much as we love restoring old buildings and get out all the detail of the plaster work, I’m happy I don’t have to get on to this site. The hospital didn’t close until the mid 1990’s and performed lobotomy on patients well in to the 1940’s. Oh, and it is supposedly haunted to.

Take flight to Germany, and have a look at another institution. This is the Military Hospital in Beelitz, Germany. The hospital started as a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients and became a military hospital in the First World War. This is were Adolf Hitler was treated for a leg wound acquired in 1916.

Looks like the setting of a romantic movie, unfortunately I’d say it contains more amputated limbs and gangrene…

Happy not to be on that examination table. More than likely the ceiling would have been framed by some ornate cornice.

Truly hauntingly beautiful. You can still make out the fantastic detailed plastered ceiling.

Perhaps to beauty of the ornate cornice and plaster mouldings helped with the healing process?

Moving down on the continent, take a trip to Chateau Miranda in Belgium. A Neo-Gothic castle, it has been abandoned since 1991, and the owning family is refusing financial aid to restore this once orphanage, wonder why…

Look at this two fantastic rooms, the plaster finished arches, so typical for the architectural period. The fantastic details framing the windows can easily be done in plaster, if any reader is after some Gothic-revival!

Let’s finish up with what Halloween has come to be about; fun, games and horror!

Here are some abandoned amusement parks to help you sleep at night

Spree Park Berlin

Gullivers Kingdom Yamanashi Japan

Six Flags; New Orleans

Cornice Kitchen Dreams!

Many of us dream of a big country kitchen, the centre of the home and family. This week we’ll show you some design ideas of how cornice can help with that effortless, homely and yet enviable look f the Country Kitchen Dream (even though Dermot Brennan clearly reminded us that there is such a thing on Room to Improve last Sunday on)

Lets start with something white, bright and light. See how the cornice just frames the room, barely there, just that extra touch to complete a flawless design

Want it even cleaner? Check out how the thin cornice works with the wood paneled ceiling on this one!

The other too plain? Look at this indulging kitchen, the cornice framed cupboards and the beautiful decorative plaster design on the ceiling.

Looking for something more detailed and a splash of colour? Here’s what kitchen dreams are made off! The cornice and ceiling work is just beautiful.

If the previous kitchen was to old fashioned, check out this classic yet modern design in black and white.

Hidden treasure, beautiful cornice in Dublin

It is time to highlight some of the beautiful cornice and decorative plaster work here in Ireland. With all the Georgian and Victorian architecture here, there is a lot of hidden treasure.

If you have been a student at UCD you might have had the privilege of calling in to Newman House on Stephens Green. Comprising of two unique Georgian houses it holds some of the most beautiful cornice in Ireland

One of the rooms with the most exquisite detailed plaster work

Making your design dreams come through

As sleek as possible or 100 hundred roses, whatever you want we can make. If you have a design you want for cornice, centrepiece, a door surround or any type of ornament inside and out, let us know and we can make it happen!

In modern design plaster work can give a great impact. It provides texture and inspires creative thinking. Get inspired by these powerful pictures

By Nashville based Heather Thompson, painter and designer

Wall designed for SFMoMA Exhibition Sensate: Bodies and Design in 2009 by Matsys a San Francisco based design studio that appears to constantly challenge the idea of design. The exhibition was the combined works to represent new ways of thinking about the entanglement of human bodies and the designed world. All ideas that are so relevant to our home environment.

Lobby at the 5 star St Regis Bal Harbour Resort on Miami Beach. Designed by Sieger Suarez Architectural Partnership

Rooftop Bar, Upstairs at the Kimberly, New York City. Architect Frank Denner

Colourful Cornice inside and out!

Normally we think of cornice as a frame to the room where the wall meets the ceiling but it can also be used externally, both for its aesthetically value and for practical uses to lead away rain water. Externally you can use traditional plaster and seal it or use fibre cement. Whatever you choose to go with make sure it reflects the building and the surroundings.

Typical use of external plaster mouldings.

In ancient Greek architecture cornice is used as the top ornament externally, above the architrave and the frieze

A gerat example to see how cornice was used during antiquity, carved in stone rather than cast. — A great example to see how cornice was used during antiquity, carved in stone rather than cast.

A fun fact is that classical Greek and roman architecture is often thought of as pristine and white, when in fact it highly coloured. The idea of the whiteness springs from the Classicist movement and preserved pieces were vigorously cleaned to bring them back to their whiteness

A great example that shows the colouring in antique statues, here is a part coloured in helmet on a statue, from the great exhibition “White Lies”

There is no need to keep your cornice white, just look at these stunning examples from Farrow and Ball

Farrow and Ball living room — A great example of how a painted in Cornice or Centrepiece can add a unique an classic look to your home. Works just as well on new as on restored plaster work

Another example of how well painted cornice looks, here in a kitchen

For more inspiration, give Elin in the office a call on 059 9143930

New cornice design in the making!

We’re getting some new products, here’s a sneak peak of our latest design, a modern sleek cornice inspired by the elegant simplicity of Art Deco.

Here’s the beta version, just hand run on the bench in our Carlow based factory. Watch this space for the finished cornice!

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Tag: design