Materials
Cork, linoleum and vinyl are three materials sold as one category
They are grouped as resilient flooring and they come from completely different places, with different lives and different ends.
Materials
Wood, stone, plaster, paint and how surfaces age in a real house.
21 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 2 of 2
Materials
Glass does four jobs in a house and only one of them is seeing out
A window is a structural hole filled with a material asked to carry light, heat, sound and safety at once. Most glazing…
Materials
Lime and cement are not the same mortar, and an old wall knows the difference
Mortar is meant to be the sacrificial part of a wall. Replacing a soft one with a hard one moves the damage into the bricks, where…
Materials
Leather is one of the few surfaces improved by being sat on
Almost every material in a house looks worse with use. Leather is the exception, provided the finish on it is the kind that can age…
Materials
Plywood, MDF and chipboard fail in three different ways
Sheet materials look interchangeable in a merchant yard and are not. Each is made differently, and each has one situation where it…
Materials
Every fixing is a question about the wall behind it
A shelf comes down because of what it was screwed into, not what it was screwed with. Knowing which of four wall types you have…
Materials
Oil, wax and lacquer are three different bargains with a wooden surface
A finish decides how wood looks, how it feels, what marks it and whether a scratch can ever be fixed. Those four things pull in…
Materials
Stone floors are cold, heavy and close to permanent
A stone floor outlasts everything else in a house, which is exactly why it deserves more thought than any other surface. The three…
Materials
Cane, rattan and bamboo are three plants with different tolerances
They get grouped together as one look, but one is a palm, one is the skin of that palm and one is a grass. They fail in different…