§ Trade · 02.00 For half a century, ornamental plaster lived almost exclusively in restoration work — historic theaters, capitol buildings, hotels with old bones. Residential work moved on to cleaner geometry, painted drywall, and the occasional applied moulding from a big-box store.
That has shifted in the last few years. High-end residential is calling back for cornices, ceiling roses, base reveals, and run mouldings — and specifying the real thing. Cast in-house, run on site, hand-finished. The craft is being rediscovered by clients who want their houses to feel like they were built, not assembled.
What specifiers should ask for: cast count, run-on-site versus pre-fabricated, pigment integration, surface finish (smooth, sand-stippled, polished). Ask whether the crew making the ornament is the same crew installing it. The answers tell you whether you're getting craft or veneer.
