Plaster, sometimes referred to as plaster of Paris, is certainly seeing a revival in the world of interior design. The once popular method of ornamentation is now seen as a great way to enhance room aesthetics. Moldings, finials, and other design elements allow designers to incorporate styling from a certain era or stylistic period. Whether your preferred design is neo-Gothic, Renaissance, Contemporary, Art-Deco, or any other style, plaster can be used to help underscore the room’s desired style.
Plaster can be used to make a wide array of design elements that can be presented in many interesting ways around your house. Plaster moldings can adorn the tops and bottoms of your rooms, where the walls meet the ceiling and the floor. Carved finials can be installed in the top corners of your room, around the crown molding, or a fireplace mantel. You can create plaster columns that stretch from floor to ceiling, evoking a neo-Classical design. Use molding to frame doorways, windows, or even mirrors and picture frames.
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A fireplace mantel becomes the focal point of your room. Although fireplace mantels can be built with any number of materials, plaster mantels tend to be more cost-effective and versatile. Plaster can be shaped into a variety of shapes and profiles, allowing you to select a style that fits in with your furnishings and personal taste. Designs can be ornately carved with columns and patterns, or they can be full of clean lines and classic architectural elements. Whatever your design aesthetic, a plaster fireplace mantel makes a great addition to your room.
Despite its reputation as a mostly decorative element, plaster can be used in many practical ways throughout your home. Chair rail moldings, set at chair level in a dining room, can help prevent dining room chairs from scuffing the walls and paint. Shoe Moldings, placed around the base moldings where the floor meets the wall, prevents scuffing from shoes, vacuum cleaners, and other low-lying detrimental forces. Plaster wall panels can strengthen noise resistance by helping to keep sounds from traveling through the walls. A picture frame molding, about seven feet from the floor, is a practical way to hang pictures around the room using picture frame hooks and wire.
Using plaster in your home design can significantly increase your home’s value by adding an understated elegance to the basic room design, as well as enhancing historical accuracy if you happen to live in an historic building. Chair rails, crown molding, and fireplace mantels can all add a lively charm to your rooms that you simply can’t take with you when you move. For the future buyer, plaster moldings and details that would have taken enormous amounts of time to install are there upon purchase. This is one element of a home that stagers might draw attention to but they could never entirely fabricate. In addition to elegance, era-appropriate moldings and finials can be incorporated in the design of an antiquated home, drawing attention to its historic value.