Yesterday’s order from the hardware arrived early which meant two things; 1. I was again grateful my house has a long corridor and that the lounge room is so big. The lengths of timber and cornice I ordered yesterday are 5.4 meters long. Where do you store that? And, 2. It’s time to make these Ikea Billy units built in.

Builders and plasters can put cornice up with very little fuss and with this particular ‘concrete’ which seals and glues and fills gaps and sounds like a wonder product, unless you’re not used to working with it.

We are not used to putting up cornice. I’ve never done this before and it’s been a few years (or decades) since dad has.

So, we’re going with a different solution which breaks the task down into smaller steps, none of which have the quick-set, move-fast panic of using the usual product.

Using a very strong glue which was spread like sauce on a hot dog along the edges of the false wall and ceiling, we lifted the cornice up into place. Then came our version of working quickly; we needed to use a whole lot of lengths of MDF, ladders, clamps, whatever we could to create props which would hold the cornice in place until the glue set.

It doesn’t quite look magical and fantastical just yet, but we’re getting there.