Loose PoP moulding - DiY

nirajn123

We have a loose ceiling moulding, getting worse by the day. In the past my attempts to get a decorator to come in to do very small jobs has been a total failure so I am hoping to see if I can fix this myself.

Any thoughts on the attached picture, how do I go about it?

Bendy_House

Any idea why it's coming off? No water leakage in the loft?!

What kind of ceiling - plasterboard, or plasterandlath?

If the ceiling above is solid and in good order, then in theory all you'd need to do it to squeeze in some adhesive behind it, and prop it up firmly from the floor using a pole. I'm sure you can cobble something up, even if it's a broom sitting on a coffee table, with three hardbacks between them.

You'll need a gap-filling adhesive, I reckon, and the 'foaming' Gorilla glue should do the job, but you'd have to watch out for it coming out the sides as it's tough stuff to trim off afterwards.

The wallpaper can be trimming with a craft knife to just meet the moulding, and then glued - PVA? - back into place. Once painted, it should look fine.

And always do a dry run first - check that you can get the prop into place with no issues before then repeating with adhesive... :-)

flashg67

Good advice above but my choice of adhesive would be a 'no more nails' type - cheap from screwfix / toolstation/wilko etc - I've used it to stick all sorts. Some strong masking tape cross the moulding while it dries might help too. Border/overlap wallpaper adhesive should get the wallpaper edges stuck down properly

nirajn123

Thank you both.

No water above, just some old damage (historic - well before we moved here 9 year ago, the gap was unnoticeable earlier) but a jumping kid who made it worse by his shenanigans. 😀

Bendy_House

I'd now second what Flash says - a no-nails type adhesive would probably be best.

Although not as strong as the 'solvent' versions, the non-solvent 'no-nails' (or similar) is a lot more pleasant to use, and I think would work better in this case. A good thing about it is that it can be filled well so as to fully coat the mating surfaces, and any that's extruded out the sides when you press the moulding back into place (and you should add enough so some does extrude!) can be simply wiped away with a damp cloth, leaving a neat finish that shouldn't require any more making good.

FreeBear

Bendy_House said: I'd now second what Flash says - a no-nails type adhesive would probably be best.

Although not as strong as the 'solvent' versions, the non-solvent 'no-nails' (or similar) is a lot more pleasant to use, and I think would work better in this case.

Using an interior grade (water based) no-nails, I'd give the plaster & trim a light spray of water first - It will reduce the amount of water sucked out of the adhesive and give you a little bit more time to get the trim back in place where it needs to be.

The anaglypta paper suggests that there may be some hidden cracks in the plaster (lime plaster & lath ?). You might want a couple more squirts of water on the plaster if it is crumbly behind the trim.