Picture Rails and Arches

[kande]

We have just bought a house in Sydney's Inner West. The only clue left to its age is a Victorian plaster arch between the hall and the lounge room. There is another modern looking (wider) arch between the lounge and dining room. We were thinking of installing picture rails around the walls in the hall and lounge, but were not sure how to fit them in with the arches. Do they go above the top of the arches (not much room) or butt up against the arches somewhere? The tops of the window architraves are below the tops of the arches if that helps!

Cheers

[Carpenter]

The height of the pic rail depends on the ceiling height, with big ceilings (12ft) it often goes above the top of the doors. Where height is limited, its usual to butt into the side of the door archs, & usually a bit below the top arch otherwise it looks odd if it lines up with the top of the door arch.

[kande]

Thanks for the advice. The ceilings are about 10ft, which certainly don't give room for picture rails above the arch. Not sure how the rails will look - might have to buy a small length and test it out first!

[BobL]

Thanks for the advice. The ceilings are about 10ft, which certainly don't give room for picture rails above the arch. Not sure how the rails will look - might have to buy a small length and test it out first!

Our house (built in 1920) has 12ft ceilings, the picture rails are about 2ft from the ceiling but they do not go right up to the corner of each room, they stop about 200 mm short of the corner. Also in one room they are only on 3 walls. In the hall the picture rails stop about half way down the hall.

All this means the rules of how you apply picture rails are flexible. Personally I would not put them above your arches. I would also recommend you look at houses of your vintage and see how the picture rails were done.

Cheers