I'm nearly ready now to come back again

[venta]

Those of you who have visited our flat will know that we inherited a rather over-blown 1920's bathroom from the previous inhabitant. In the first instance I found it terrifying, but have grown to love its green and jet black tiling.

Anyway, it's lit by four wall lamps, each with a large white glass globe. This morning I took off my dressing gown and somehow managed to flail an arm such that I hit one of the globes.

Oops.

I tried to catch it as it fell, fumbled, missed, and waited for the smash as it hit the tiled floor.

And waited.

Err?

Of course, the globe is screwed to the light fitting. You can't knock it off. What you can do is wrench the entire fitting from the wall and leave it dangling on its wires.

The previous inhabitant was something of a DIY-er, we think. And this light reveals more of his work. The holes in the wall are huge, big enough to fit a finger in, with the rawl plugs packed in with slivers of wood. To be honest, I'm slightly surprised the light didn't fall off the wall years ago.

But now we have the problem of fixing it. Anyone have any advice on filling large holes in walls? I'm worried that Polyfilla might just form a large plug that will pull straight back out again.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

There are some good no-more-nails products that should allow you to fill/glue rawl plugs in place. It depends on the integrity of the stuff (plaster/brick/whatever) around the holes. If that's crumbly, then it's a lot trickier to get something that holds, as the plaster will just pull out. If it's plasterboard with a cavity behind, then it may be harder to fill, but there are metal rawl plug/screw combies with expanding flanges that will sit behind boards when you screw the screw in.

[dr-bob.livejournal.com]

Oops - that was me.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Mildly crumbly plastered wall. I haven't really interviewed it yet to see how crumbly.

I'm slightly fearing it may involve digging a channel to shuffle the wires along 8", fitting the lamp back to a new and unsullied bit of wall, and then replastering over all the evidence. And I'd really rather not do that :-)