Lately I’ve had a few small home-design and maintenance missteps that made me think, “this is not ideal.” We try to share the wins and the setbacks here, so below are three recent oops moments—what went wrong, how we fixed it, and what we learned.
First up: a framing experiment gone wrong. I’d seen a page in Domino magazine that mixed black and white frames, and it inspired me to add some black-fronted frames to the gallery above our living-room TV. I didn’t want to paint or make a permanent change, so I tried a quick hack: black electrical tape applied to the front of several frames to mimic a painted edge.
I cut the tape into neat strips and even added little corner accents on one frame. At first it looked great—the black fronts tied into the dark TV and the contrast with the white sides was exactly what I wanted. For a few days I felt pretty clever about the solution.
Then the tape started to fail. It puckered, peeled at the corners and in some cases came completely loose. It turns out electrical tape isn’t designed for a long-term decorative finish: over time it can shrink, pull away from edges and eventually fall off. Even worse, where the tape adhered to the chalky white matte frames, it left black smudges.
I tried to remove the residue with a commercial adhesive remover, but it didn’t do the trick. My next plan is to try a Magic Eraser; if that doesn’t work I’ll sand and repaint those frames. The takeaway: temporary solutions can be tempting, but use materials intended for decorative finishes—washi tape, paint, or contact paper would have been safer choices than electrical tape.
The second oops involves a small maple tree we’ve moved with us across three homes. It’s an offshoot from a maple at John’s childhood house and has sentimental value, so we baby it. A few weeks after planting it at our current place we noticed the lower branches were being nibbled and the tree was thinning out. We suspect deer.
We tried a few neighborhood-approved deterrents and ultimately draped black netting over the tree. The netting is discreet unless you’re inches away, and so far it’s working—the deer have left the maple alone. Many larger maples in our area stay untouched because deer can’t reach their higher branches, so we hope this little tree will grow out of reach in a few years and can be freed from the netting permanently.
Our third and most serious issue was discovering lead on two dining-room cabinet doors. I had an uneasy feeling about the metal frames around the glass panes after finding a black powdery residue in the cabinets when we moved in, so I used a lead test kit. These inexpensive kits are simple: snap a test stick, rub the tip on the surface, and watch for a color change. Within seconds the test turned bright red, indicating the presence of lead.
That confirmation prompted immediate action. John removed the doors and placed them safely in a corner of the garage, out of reach of Clara and our dog. We wiped down the surrounding shelves, walls and floor with TSP to remove any potential dust. Because lead exposure mainly happens through ingestion or inhalation of dust, it didn’t feel right to leave the doors in place where they could contaminate serving dishes or the cabinet interior.
We’re exploring options other than disposal: ideally an antiques professional who understands how to stabilize or encapsulate lead-painted items could restore or repurpose them safely. In general, experts often recommend sealing lead paint with fresh paint to lock it in, but given the visible dust we felt removal and careful cleaning were the safer immediate steps for our home.
Every home has its “oops” moments. For us these recent slip-ups were a reminder to choose materials suited for the job, to protect sentimental plants from curious wildlife, and to take lead concerns seriously and act promptly. Have you had similar oopses at home? What quick fixes or long-term solutions worked for you?