When Plaster coving meets kitchen cabinet cornice

[Diygail123]

Hi, I’m new to the forum, I joined to see if anyone can help me. I am currently giving my kitchen a makeover, and all is going well, albeit slowly! My kitchen wall units run wall to wall, and are quite short, so I want to fill the gap between them and the ceiling, to make them look taller, and hide the horrible dead space. I have watched lots of you tube videos, and think I can do it, but I can see one problem. My kitchen has plaster coving up, which I would like to keep, and I also want to keep the cornice that is on top of my wall units. The you tube videos put the cornice flush with the ceiling with a plank of plywood Below, covering the gap above the units, and this looks very nice I think. But what do I do where the cornice will meet the coving, at right angles, at each end of the run of units? How do I join them together nicely? I will have to cut the coving round the cornice won’t I? Or do I cut the cornice to fit the coving? Both sound quite hard! I don’t really want the cornice to hit the wall below the coving as that Means the space above the units won’t Be completely covered. Help!

 

[^woody^]

Search for profile gauge.

 

[Diygail123]

Thanks Woody, I’ve had a read of those posts, and I can see that I need to cut the profile of the cornice out of the coving. Do you know the best tool to do this with, bearing in mind the coving is made of plaster and is glued to the wall/ceiling? Or is it best to cut the profile of the coving out of the Mdf cornice? Thinking about it, that might be easier .....

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Personally, I don't think that you can make two dissimilar covings joining together look nice. You'd normally side step the issue by finishing the kitchen units lower than ceiling, boxing in the space between the tops of the cabinets and the ceiling with something like 2 x 2in softwood and plasterboard (scribing the plasterboard around the ceiling coving) then adding a timber coving to the tops of the cabinets (below the level of the plaster coving) and finally, if required, running plaster coving around the top of the boxing in, scribed in at the ends where it meets the original plaster coving

As you have discovered, what you are attempting to do is all but impossible to achieve neatly and a contour gauge will only get you so far. It will take a lot of trial and error work with a coping saw and rat tailed files to make the scribe and I'd hazard a guess that you won't get it right first time. Cut your kitchen coving pieces over length, do the scribe first and when both scribes are acceptable do the mitre cuts. It won't work if you cut the mitres first. Getting the scribes right will take multiple adjustments and "offering ins" of the material

 

[^woody^]

I still can't visualise the junction exactly, but when tying to join dissimilar profiles, a block or similar in the corner and the two profiles butt up to it can sometimes help.

 

[Tigercubrider]

How big a gap between the top of the cabinet coving and the ceiling?