Filling a hole in a ceiling

Get a short piece of wood & partly insert a screw halfway along. Poke into hole & centralise. Pull down on screw to hold in place while you screw through plasterboard either side of hole into wood. Remove partly inserted screw.

Cut a circular piece from some scrap plasterboard as close as possible to the hole in the ceiling.

Now screw plasterboard bit into wood. Fill around edges.

Can you put a smoke alarm over it? well it will be invisible won't it.;-)

Or if you're clever/lazy just cut a circular blank, stick in with bit of filler or solvent-free gripfill or whatever, hold in place with 3 fat screws in the joint locking the blank into the hole till it's stuck, then fill rest of join & make good.

Good solution.

I like to augment it with some grey Gripfill if it's a lath/plaster ceiling, or the mimsy-water-based version for plasterboard. Then it doesn't matter if there is some movement with the screws.

Or if you are even lazier, stuff newspaper in the gap till you caint stuff no mo, and skim..haven't you ever bought a second hand car?

They are made of newspaper and car body filler, and rust. :-)

Thanks for the tips which are useful but I'm concerned about the surface finish showing through the paint.

If you are that fussy, then you'll have to iterate a fill/sand/paint cycle until you achieve a satisfactory finish.

Oh, use plaster - finishing plaster - and then sand flush.

You may have to paint the whole ceiling again, as new paint never quite matches old.

give the new section a few coats of the old paint first, then get a pot of new and redecorate.

Five smoke alarms in one room may look a little paranoid

=A0 London SW

I recently used TMH's solution and the hole is now 100% invisible - even I can't remember where it is - and these things usually haunt me

- because even though no-one else will notice it - I *know* it's there!

Mark.

People often question the mere two in our living room!