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

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

When faced with similar issues of absurdly friable plaster, I resorted to massive over-engineering with hammer fixings as long as they had to be to get a decent grip in to the bricks behind.

If there's a deep hole to fill, you want to make sure the filler has dried properly before you drill in to it. This may mean multiple layers and lots of waiting. You can get special 'deep hole' filler that dries a bit quicker (and is easier to apply) for this sort of thing.

Another handy thing is reinforcing tape - I forget the name, but it's a bit like white gaffer tape with thicker strings. I think it's meant for repairing plasterboard. You take the surface back to stable and apply the tape over the hole. Then skim coat with plaster.