Equipping a home, a person seeks to create a comfortable, original and stylish interior. Isolation of rooms today is not so popular, which is why when decorating the premises, the technique of smooth transition of one room to another is used. This allows you to create a single space without walls.
Arches in the house act as an alternative solution, which are able to simultaneously combine and separate space. Choosing an arch design, you will understand that there are a great many of them today. Finding a suitable option is not difficult, one of them you can certainly fit into your interior.
Varieties of arches in forms
The arch is the main difference between the arches. Its shape allows you to attribute the design to a particular variety, among them:
- classic;
- romance;
- trapezoid;
- portal;
- Art Nouveau;
- ellipse;
- semiarca.
The classic solution is today the most popular and represents an opening that can be entered into any interior. In this case, the radius of the portal is rounded and equal to half the width of the opening. The romantic-style arch has a rectangular arch. This decision can be resorted to when designing a wide aperture.
The trapezoidal arch speaks for itself, but the portal is made in the form of a rectangle and is the easiest to execute. Additional labor costs will not be needed, because the corners do not have to draw. Arches in the house are often decorated in the Art Nouveau style, which is a cross between the portal and the classics. The roundness of the arch here is less pronounced than in the classical version, but this arch is far from an ideal rectangle.
The ellipse is identical to the previous model, its only difference is the large radius of curvature in the region of angles. An example of asymmetric solutions is the semi-arch, one part of which repeats the portal arch, while the other repeats art nouveau or classic.
Varieties of arches for the materials used
Arches in the house can be made of different materials, among them:
- a rock;
- wood;
- brick;
- drywall.
The latter material is used quite often for the reason that it is easy to process, and when exposed to moisture, it can use a variety of forms. As soon as the sheets can be converted, they should be fixed to the installed frame. It is made of metal, and the formed joints can be covered with putty. At the final stage, such an arch is covered with the same materials that are used in the design of the walls. If you have some experience, then working with drywall will be quite simple.
Features of wooden arches
An arch of wood with your own hands can very well be installed. Such designs differ from door wide platbands. The system is practical, because it is less susceptible to damage compared to drywall counterparts. But with differences in temperature and humidity, cracks can form on the wood, this can be avoided by treating the material with special compounds.
Today, a wooden arch with your own hands can be installed from glued lumber. In this case, it will be possible to achieve a reduction in cost, and the quality of such structures is almost no different from wooden.
Features of stone and brick arches
The most interesting design decision can be called arches made of stone or brick. Such systems are faced with tiles that imitate natural material. This method is relevant when you want to decorate an existing opening. If you need to change the configuration of the opening, you can refuse to plaster part of the wall around the arch, laying a stone or brick on the surface.
Arch Options
Door arches must have certain dimensions, which depend on the characteristics of the room. You can choose the width of the opening yourself, but the height will be limited by the overlap. If the height is 2500 mm or 3200 mm, then the optimum value for the height of the arch is 2200 mm or 2600 mm, respectively.
Preparing to install plywood arches: materials and tools
Door arches can be made independently by preparing:
- plywood;
- wooden blocks;
- hammer drill;
- electric drill;
- jigsaw;
- miter box;
- milling cutter;
- nails
- grinding machine;
- self-tapping screws;
- scuba diving;
- mastic for grouting joints;
- liquid Nails;
- polyurethane foam;
- twine
- pencil;
- building level.
When preparing plywood, you must be guided by the following dimensions: sheets should have a thickness of 18 to 21 mm, while their parameters will be 2.44 x 1.22 m. 5 pieces of such sheets will be needed. With the same dimensions, you should also prepare 3 mm plywood.
Template preparation
You can make arches in a wooden house from any materials, but plywood will be the most optimal. Before starting work, you should prepare a template, it will allow you to correctly cut platbands. To do this, cut a 6-cm strip from the long side of the plywood, the length of which should be 1/3 more than the width of the doorway.
If plywood of this size was not found, you can connect two strips. At the junction, the elements are connected with nuts or small bolts. As a result, it will be possible to obtain a long blank, the width of which will be greater than the width of the opening. This element is applied between the sides of the opening, and the curvature can be selected as desired, reinforcing it with twine.
Cut the clypeus
Having considered all types of arches in the house, you can choose for yourself the most suitable option. If you plan to make an arcuate design, then at the next stage on a flat surface you need to place a sheet of thick plywood, attaching a template to it. If one sheet was not enough, then attach 2 or 3.
The template is positioned so that the sides of the plywood are equal. The contours of the lower part of the clypeus can be marked with a pencil. Up the master will have to retreat 10 cm, drawing the outline of the clypeus. In size, the curvature can be cut with an electric jigsaw.
It will take two identical blanks, each of which will go to its side of the arch. It’s great if you make an arc from one piece. To get such an arch, you need to dock pieces of different curvature. The milling cutter will allow you to cut a groove in one workpiece, while in the other - a protrusion, which should form a large segment. The elements are glued into a single whole, for this you need to pick up a good glue, pressing the blanks with clamps. Once the glue hardens, you can proceed to further gluing the arc. The edge of the clypeus is treated with a mill, and then polished.
Work on vertical platbands
An arch in a panel house can be made using the technology presented in the article. The next step will be to cut vertical platbands. There should be 4, and thick plywood should be used for manufacturing. The height should be more than 20 cm. Now it is the turn of the bent arch of the arch. They make it out of thick plywood, otherwise the design will look like cheap decoration.
The width of the arch will be equal to the width of the wall in which the opening is installed. The easiest way to make bent plywood is a longitudinal cut. Then the elements should be bent according to the pattern. Saws can be milled, and the distance between them will be 2 cm.
Before bending the arch, you need to practice on unnecessary pieces of thick plywood. You can improve the results by wetting the element with water or steaming it before bending. In the next step, using the template, you can perform workpiece with standard curvature. Grooves before bending are coated with glue.
Arch Mounting
Installing an arch in a home is the most important process. To do this, the side parts of the racks are made. On thick plywood, marking should be done by sawing the boards with a jigsaw to a width equal to an arcuate arch. The prepared parts are ground and sized. The resulting gaps are filled with special mastic, and the structure itself is strengthened with finish nails or self-tapping screws, which are then closed with plastic caps.
Arch details can be fixed with foam. Until it hardens, spacers from the rails should be installed. To the arch, the clypeus is fixed with finish nails. On this we can assume that the design is ready.
Arches
Decoration of arches in the house today is carried out by different materials, however, one of the most popular in recent years is polyurethane. Stucco molding, pediments of houses, trim elements of pilasters, columns and arches are made from it. The cost of this option is much lower compared to the decor of stone and wood.
Installation is quite simple, use liquid nails for this. No additional decor is required, and the surface of the elements can be painted. Install polyurethane decorative elements only on the end parts or the outside. At the same time, uprights are often formed in the form of round or square columns with a bell. Before you make an arch in the house, you should think about what material will be used at the final stage.
The classic in this matter is stone. However, it can be used only on those arches that are located in the openings of monolithic partitions and load-bearing walls. Plasterboard hollow partitions can not stand such a design, so it is better to use artificial stone or flexible acrylic tiles for them.
Conclusion
Choosing a finish for the arch, you can pay attention to the materials that occupy a leading position today, among them: travertine, shell rock, slate, marble, and granite. Preferring such a solution, you can choose not only the shade, but also the texture, which can be clearly polished or rough and unfinished.