Decorating kit that fails

These notes are house-fabric failure modes, not a paint catalogue. I write them when something on the wall stops doing its one job: filler that sinks overnight, a bead that lets go at the corner, lining that dries into a field of blisters. One job, one failure.

This is not a second homepage. The home page already says what I keep and what I skip. This page is only a way into the notes by the way they fail.

A room does not need a colour card and five tins. It needs the hole less deep than my patience, both faces of the joint clean, and paste mixed as the roll asks. If a note is here, it is because I have already wasted time on the wrong fix.

Most of the failures repeat. A deep hole packed in one go skins on the face and shrinks in the middle. A bath bead gunned onto last year's soap film peels in a string. A lining hung stiff, on soup, or on a dusty wall, bubbles as it dries. The tin, the tube, and the roll get the blame. They were doing a skim's job in a cavity, a seal's job on dirt, a lining's job on a starved wall.

I am not opening a decorating column. Rollers, dust sheets, masking, and sugar soap can wait until I have written them. These three notes are the cluster that exists. I keep them together because they sit on the same wall. Filler is not caulk. Caulk is not a substitute for lining into a wet corner. I hang paper after the filler has gone off, not over a crater I packed that morning.

I work when the room can stay unused. Summer with the windows open dries a face too fast. Winter with the radiators on does the same pull. That is already in the notes.

Holes, joints, and paper

I am pmac. There are no buy links on these notes. If I later add one, it will be labelled Advertisement.