Picture rail height when door & window nearly same heigh

[nebjamin]

Hi Folks,

Done a bit of searching but no luck.

In the process of restoring a 1930s house from the damage that the previous retarded owners did.

One bedroom had been converted into a shower room (complete with hacked up floor joists for the shower waste... !)

We have curvy ceilings on the external walls so picture rails are essential in the bedrooms as there's no other way to break between white for the ceiling and paint for the walls (since there's no corner, just a curve).

Anyway, the room was tiled, now been plastered and I'm fixing picture rails - problem is that the top of the architrave is slightly higher (about 1-2cm) than the top of the window.

What to do?

Align with the window (which is the first thing you see when entering the room), or with the architrave.

If architrave, what do you do when you get to the edges of the window?

In fact even if i line up with the top of the window reveal, do I take the picture rail into the reveal or just stop it short with a straight edge at the sides?

Thanks,
Ben

 

[big-all]

i would say copy other rooms or failing that go for the door as windows have a view and curtains to distract from the odd lines

 

[foxhole]

Picture rail will look silly in a room not intended for them.

 

[nebjamin]

Thanks for the replies - good point about the curtains.

And foxhole all the rooms originally had picture rails, I'm just restoring to original. I think since the room has been replastered it's thrown the bottom of the window reveal out by a bit which has caused the difference.

 

[JohnD]

but how high are the ceilings? In my houses the picture raile has been 18" to 2ft below the ceiling, which is usually higher than the architrave.

I have had rooms where the top of a window has been higher than the picture rail, and the rail just runs to the side of it and stops. You don't hang pictures over a window.

 

[nebjamin]

The ceilings are about 45cm above the rail. I put it up over the weekend. This is the only room where the top of the window is roughly the same as the architrave. All other rooms the windows are taller so the rail goes into the reveal about 9/10 way up.

I know the original was aligned with the architrave cos I saw the old marks when I pulled off the tiles.

The issue is that the top of the window reveal is now slightly lower than the architrave cos the room was replastered.

In any case, its all done now and it looks fine. I just took the rail into the reveal at the top, but had to slice a bit off the rail in the reveal because it was slightly higher.