My ceiling repair turned into a 3-day geometry lesson

Everyone says to just patch the hole, but matching the curve on this 1928 plaster cove molding took me 14 hours of shaping and sanding. What's the most time you've lost trying to get a historical detail right?

4 comments

4 Comments

andrew_palmer991mo ago

My 1936 bathroom tile took a full weekend just to match the grout color. Sometimes the right way is the slow way.

hugo_bennett1mo ago

Custom mix with dry pigments works best.

benc531mo ago

Ever try to match a color from 1936? I bet the original guy just grabbed whatever powder was nearby and called it a day. Now we're spending our Saturdays like museum art restorers, mixing tiny piles of dust for some grout. The ghosts of past homeowners are definitely laughing at us.

milaprice1mo ago

Ugh, tell me about it. I spent three days trying to match the mortar on my old fireplace. Ended up mixing like six different shades of sand and gray powder, it looked straight up like a science project gone wrong. The final color was off by a tiny bit and it still bugs me, but at that point I was just done. Feels like you need a degree in historic paint chemistry for this stuff.