How to cover holes in wall

Denene

When I moved into my house, I found the previous owners had left a few holes in the living room, which I never discovered the reason for.

I've had them covered by the sofa, which I'm now replacing, so I would like to fix them.



There are wires inside, and I don't know if it's safe to leave them be; there's a metal plate at the back of each hole. I thought about covering them with blanking plates, but I think the left one, at least, is too tall. They also seem really roughly chipped out - I don't know if all sockets look like this behind the plate!

Is there a DIY fix for this, or am I better getting a professional?(electrician? handyman?)

TheCyclingProgrammer

Fixed image link:
http://imgur.com/a/CMwDq

TheCyclingProgrammer

You need to establish whether or not those wires are live and connected to anything before you do anything.

Once that is dealt with, if the wires are dead you can probably just remove the wires and fill the boxes in, otherwise you should be able to fit blanking plates over them (but you'll still need to make good around the edges of the boxes because the holes are a mess).

Denene

TheCyclingProgrammer wrote: »

Fixed image link:
http://imgur.com/a/CMwDq

Thank you - think I was doing something stupid!

Denene

With regards to the wires, I've just had a closer look without sticking my fingers near the exposed bits, and the the left one seems to be Cat 5.

The right one has 4 wires (2 coated blue, 1 orange, 1 white) and 2 pieces of thread coming out of it. I'm thinking it might be telephone wire.

If I were to fill in the holes, would I just use loads of Polyfilla? The room needs painting anyway, so this might be the best solution.

There's a fair bit of interesting DIY here. Holes in the wall seem to be a speciality.

TheCyclingProgrammer

To be honest for holes that deep I would use something like bonding or even dry wall adhesive to fill it up just below flush then use some Easifill to skim over the top in two coats, sanding back after each.

Lorian

If they are cat5e and phone they may at some point be some use, think twice before filling the holes in!

Depends where they go to of course.

stone7

lorian wrote: »

if they are cat5e and phone they may at some point be some use, think twice before filling the holes in!

Depends where they go to of course.

this.............

ossie

Why not just buy cat5e and phone socket...Job Done!

Denene

Lorian wrote: »

If they are cat5e and phone they may at some point be some use, think twice before filling the holes in!

Depends where they go to of course.

Actually, I'm only more confused about this possible telephone wire, because the previous owners had Virgin, and BT told me there was no phone line to the house, so I had one installed (on the other side of the living room) when I moved in! I'm quite intrigued about where the other end of the CAT5 pops out too.

Denene

ossie wrote: »

Why not just buy cat5e and phone socket...Job Done!

Annoyingly, I cannot think of anywhere in the house the other end of the CAT5 might come out! There are a couple of stereo wires that disappear into a wall and don't reappear, so who knows what's going on!