Coving is probably one of the most common jobs undertaken when decorating a room.
It can be added to cover cracks between walls and ceilings or just as a finishing touch to a room.
It takes off the squareness of the room and gives a nice break between the wall and ceiling.
Paper faced plaster coving is the most common used and it is fairly simple to install and cost effective.
There is also Decorative plaster coving which needs a little more care and attention and is fairly costly.
I am going to concentrate on the paper faced plaster cove although the techniques for fitting the decorative plaster cove follow the same principle.
 
There are two main sizes of plaster cove. These are 100mm (4inch) and 127mm (5inch) and it will come in either a grey or white faced covering depending on the manufacturer

It also comes in a variety of lengths. These are 2metre, 3metre and 3.6metre. The 2m lengths are easy to handle and you can quite comfortably handle these on your own when fitting. It can become a little tricky when fitting the 3m lengths by yourself and a second pair of hands will certainly help. The 3.6m lengths are generally used by contractors. The longer the lengths the less joins there will be.

Coving can be decorated once it has been fitted by painting to match your desired colour scheme or you can buy decorated coving paper that you can stick to the face of the cove.
Coving should be fitted before you decorate your walls or ceilings.

Well that's enough of the introduction, let's start to look at how to fit your coving. The Preparation, Mitres and Joins section takes us through the preparation process and how to cut coving. See you there.