ledge/plate rail for hallway - doorways?
Hi there folks.
We've got a 1940s brick bungalow, built with picture rails in every room. The ceilings are 2.7m high, 9', and the picture rail tops are level with the tops of the door architraves. They run between doors around each room (at least the ones that haven't been savagely ripped down and badly patched).. They ran over the joint in the plaster boards (that hairy hemp stuff).
In the hallway, the previous owners, in their frenzied 70s makeover, removed pretty much everything. The lady told me, "There used to be a lovely ledge, but we ripped it all out. What did we know back then?" Indeed. So there used to be a plate rail. I could've strangled them!!!
What I'm trying to work out is how to replace it.
Do we run the top of the rails level with the top of the door arcs, and put the shelf on top of that, so that it runs unbroken down the hallway above the doors? Or, do we put the rails only between the doorways, with it sitting about 20mm below the top of the door arc so that when the shelf top is affixed, it is level with the top of the door arc? This is a real conundrum for me! I've searched for pictures on the net, but they seem to be of much older houses.
In older houses it would've been so much easier, as the ceilings (and rails) were higher and doorways weren't an issue. Everything ran above them or below them. I've tried to get a hold of a photo from the people who owned the house before the previous owners, and they have nothing of the hallway and don't remember how it was. Many A&C houses have the rail running around the rooms, resting on the doorway arcs. But in this house, the plaster seam dictates where the rail goes, unfortunately.
This house was built in '46, and so they tried to retain some of the older features of the Deco era, in spite of post-war shortages of materials, time, and manpower. It's kind of "Deco-modern" transitional, with one foot in each era.
We intend to have 75mm wide upright pieces, mock stiles, between the skirting boards and upper rail, one on each stud (or as close as possible) for a "poor man's wainscot".
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