On the subject of keeping the interior of a house in good repair, you have a tremendous amount of ground to cover.
The interior of the average home is composed of many different materials, all kinds of textures, grains and colors, all worked over and installed in place by different kinds of mechanics and tradesmen, any one of whom might be an artist at his own trade but knows nothing about the others.
The homeowner who undertakes his own interior repairs and maintenance jobs must learn and acquire a smattering of all trades. He will either make one or two attempts at small odd jobs and give up in disgust, or he will stick to it; master a few of the rules and techniques of the various trades, and get a great kick out of it. Incidentally, the ideas that he is saving a considerable amount of money will not be painful.
The old saying that “an expert is a man possessed of a vast amount of ignorance on a great many subjects” is true. The homeowner does not want to be an expert with a finished hand for one task alone. He wants to have a small amount of knowledge about a great many things.
Most house interiors have wood floors, trim, windows and doors. They have plaster walls and ceilings. Most of the walls are painted or covered with wallpaper, and a few of the floors are covered with linoleum or tile. It is not too much to expect, to be able to learn how to treat these materials once they have been put up or nailed down by an expert.
It is being done every day by men and women who had the will to apply themselves, and in many cases it has developed into an interesting hobby. It has been proved beyond question, that any intelligent adult can handle his own interior repair work with ease, once he has been shown the right way in which to tackle it. There are two reasons for keeping the interior of a house in good repair.
The first is to make it pleasant to the eye, and the second is to make it comfortable. If you accomplish both of these things, you are doing a lot, and at the same time you will probably go a long way toward making the house safe to live in as well. The first thing you notice when you enter a house is the condition of the walls and ceilings.
If there is a gaping seam in the wallpaper, or one corner of it peel ing off, it strikes your eye at once. You also think to yourself, that it seems a small thing to let go that way. If there is a large stain on the wall, you wonder why the owner has not done something about it.
If there is a badly cracked ceiling, or a discolored ceiling, you promptly feel that the house is owned by careless or disinterested people, who are obviously content to live in any kind of surroundings. Other people notice exactly the same defects in your house when they enter it. You do not notice these small things about your own home for the simple reason that Stained walls and spotted ceilings can ruin the appearance of a well furnished room. The walls are the most important items of any enclosed area because they attract the most attention.