Follow these top tips for fitting your vinyl to avoid making costly mistakes.

• Start by clearing the room and unrolling the vinyl. Trim the vinyl roughly to fit, leaving 5cm or more excess all around the edge of the room. If there are any large areas where the vinyl won’t be needed, such as a fireplace hearth, roughly cut around them (again allowing at least 5cm excess) to make the vinyl more manageable.
• Cut down through the excess to the floor at the corners of the room, then cut the vinyl to fit along the walls. To do this, take a block of wood and use it to press the vinyl into a crease along the bottom of the skirting board. Trim off the excess neatly using a craft knife and metal ruler.
• If you cut the vinyl too short, either pull some over from the other side of the room (if possible), or hide your mistake with a piece of beading, which you can fix to the skirting board.
• To fit the vinyl around awkward objects, such as a loo, cut it down from the top of the excess to the floor every couple of centimetres. Once you’ve made cuts all around the base of the object, push the vinyl in to place and trim it neatly to fit.
• Leave the finished floor for a few days to settle, then fix it in place at the doorway with vinyl tape. For a neat edge and to prevent the vinyl being torn, fit a metal threshold strip to cover the join between the vinyl and the flooring on the other side of the door.

DIY news bulletin

Sandtex has launched two lovely new colours for exterior walls.

The new additions to its Ultra Smooth Masonry Paint range are Umberstone, a delicate taupe, and Plymouth Grey, a soft grey.

Both are perfect if you want to transfer your favourite interior colours to the outside of your home.

Ultra Smooth Masonry Paint is waterproof, breathable and dirt resistant, and has an impressive 15-year guarantee.

Prices start at £15.49 (RRP) for 2.5ltr. Find out more at www.sandtex.co.uk

The new Dremel Book Of Inspiration contains 50 step-by-step projects and can be downloaded from the company’s website.

The online book has ideas for DIY and creative projects of varying levels of difficulty, all using Dremel’s range of tools.

It’s divided into four sections – Home Decor, DIY/Restoration, Arts and Crafts, and Seasonal Ideas – including Christmas ones.

The projects range from making a mobile for a baby and repairing scratches on a car’s wing mirror to creating cherry-blossom cushions, engraving Champagne flutes and making a hanging wine rack.

The Dremel Book Of Inspiration can be viewed and downloaded for free by visiting www.dremeleurope.com/specials/book-of-inspiration/gb/en/index.html

Ask the expert…

Q: I’ve got hairline cracks in my kitchen ceiling and I can’t seem to get rid of them for long – what can I do about them?

A: Hairline cracks have a habit of reappearing, especially if there’s a room (and so movement) above, but there are specialist products designed to cover them and stop them from coming back.

One is Polycell Crack-Free Ceilings, from £15.49 (RRP) for 2.5ltr, a flexible hairline-crack paint that also covers up stains, which is really useful, especially in kitchens and bathrooms.

Another good product is Ronseal Crack Filling Flexible Basecoat, from £15.98 (RRP) for 2.5ltr, which fills and covers hairline cracks in walls as well as ceilings. Its flexible formula moves with the surface, which helps to keep the cracks covered.

Both products are easy to use – just paint them on as you would normal emulsion. They’re designed to cover and fill in one coat.

Seasonal task…

Have you had your boiler serviced? Avoid potential problems when it gets really cold by getting a Gas Safe registered (www.gassaferegister.co.uk) engineer to give it a once over now. A service may also make your boiler and central heating work more efficiently.