MM wrote:
Chris Bacon wrote:
MM wrote:
I have several fine drying out cracks in the plaster of my house,
which is now about 18 months old. Several walls are affected. I shall
short;ly be placing the property on the market. I don't want to go to
all the hassle of painting all the walls, which are currently
magnolia.

My aim is to repair the cracks and dust over them with a fine brush
with magnolia so that the cracks are invisible. In other words, the
kind of repair done to Old Masters.

I should fill the cracks and paint the whole of
whichever walls are affected. It's really not a lot of "hassle".


But it is a LOT of hassle! For a start, the wall leading up the stairs
is inaccessible in parts because it is so high. I'd have to employ a
professional painter, or try to manhandle a roller on a long (very
long) pole. Or build some kind of scaffolding to support a ladder.
Then there's all the masking off to be done. This house has very nice
wood skirting, so I'd need to take care that none of that became
spattered with paint. Ditto the wall-to-wall fitted carpet. I'd say
it's a huge task.

Stairs: get a board long enough to go from the back wall of the
stairwell level onto one of the stairs. Wrap some clean rag
around one one end, tape it on. Get a bit of 4x2 long enough to
reach to the back wall of the stairwell level with the selected
stair. Screw a "T"-piece to the top of the 4x2, made of 6x1,
using 2 1/2" screws. Put the "T" up, rest board on top and
stair, there's access. £20 - or perhaps don't do the stairwell!
Masking? Get a big bit of dust-sheet (cloth, not nasty plastic
which tears easily). That'll be a tenner. Buy two! Tape it onto
the skirtings, lay it over the floor. £4 for tape. One coat of
emulsion on selected filled walls. £23 for 10 litres of emulsion.
Total £67, and not much time spent.


The "quick fixes" will be likely to stick out like a sore thumb,
and cracks will draw unwanted attention.


But cracks that have been filled and are shown not to have opened up
again? They might draw attention, but be shrugged off as unimportant
(which is indeed what they are, structurally speaking).

But the buyer would still have to paint, and in these market
conditions almost anything that'll help sell is wortth doing!


Also, if I
paint the walls, there's no guarantee that other cracks won't open up
in the time it takes to sell the house

True, but if they're just shrinkage, there should not be any.


as houses are simply not shifting at the moment.

See above.


(I'm not going to put it on the market until
the spring.) Latest rumours from RightMove do suggest a slight
increase in optimism, however.

Hmm.