http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle ... -it-myself

I've never been shown but then I've never asked to be taught either - it's the one thing my cnut of a dad is useful for. And that statement alone shows how much an older bloke is expected to just know.

I think it would be a good idea to teach practical skills as early as possible, it seems to have worked before Ikea, tyrant landlords/associations and the fear of bodging it and wasting materials.

When we moved in to this place, we had a hell of a job undoing all the bodges by the previous owner.
These include, but are not limited to, a gas oven situated between two door ways. The gas line was plumbed in on a rigid pipe.
The waste disposal unit was also a death trap waiting to happen - there was a slight weeping leak that was dripping on to the motor assembly, and again, the thing was wired up using some twisted strands and electrical tape.
The wiring to the lights in the kitchen looked as if they'd been knitted together - there were sections that had been cut, extra spliced in (with electric tape wrappings) for no good reason.
The TV signal booster in the loft was getting it's supply from the lighting circuit, with the result that if you used the dimmer in the lounge the TV picture would freeze.
Every single blind was affixed using a mix of screws. Same with some of the doors and the door handles.
The coat rack was similarly put up using what ever he had to hand from the looks of it.
Same thing for the exterior lights. Nothing like being up a ladder and realising that the last screw is different and you'll need to go and get another driver.
The sunken bath - this was fitted by sawing through flooring joists. The waste pipe from the bath actually had a slight rise in it on it's way to join the main waste pipe, and so the bath never fully emptied.
The kitchen was covered in tongue and groove pine. When we stripped this off, the walls looked like they'd been shipped from outside the Green Zone in Baghdad.

DIY's gay!

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... d-news-diy

I can see there Prof's point about quality of workmanship and bodges but I kind of resent the original article's inference that modern blokes are mechanically incompetent and have to 'get a man in' to do anything vaguely practical.

I live in a house that could charitably have been called a 'do-er upper'. Hadn't been touched since the 70's basically. Since I moved in the whole ground floor has been renovated and refreshed. I've just finished the kitchen after doing the main living areas and the bathroom.

Now, did I fit that kitchen all myself? No, of course I bloody didn't. First of all certain aspects of it legally require qualified people to do the work e.g. electricals and some other bits are definitely best done by a tradesman. Any DIYer who hays they can do plaster skimming as well as a pro is an idiot, frankly. And if I'd done it myself in the evenings while I have to work in the day, I wouldn't have had a kitchen for about three months. So I got an experienced bloke in who could work around all the quirks (not flat & square walls etc) and work at it all day and it was done much quicker to a very good level of finish. And I don't regret spending a penny of the money that cost. But am I doing the 'any practical bloke' stuff like some of the woodwork and the decorating myself? yes I am.

Can I do basic maintenance work on my car? Yes, although some of the work that you used to have to do on your car is no longer there to be done anyway.

Could my dad build a PC? Not in a month of Sundays. I can. Isn't that a 'practical' task too?

I don't buy this 'ooh, our dads were much more practical than we were'. It's just bollocks. There were domestic builders and plumbers and plasterers in the 40's and 50's and people paid them to do work for them. People did some stuff themselves, and they got tradesmen to do the complicated and difficult bits. It's just the same today.

You know what the difference is? The difference is our Dads haven't had twenty years of utter cocklords ignoring Sarah Beeny's advice on TV and redoing ancient ruined farmhouses into something they can sell for several million quid. Those shows may show them knocking in nails and being very practical, but they almost inevitably don't give a proper impression of how much time it took, how much of a pain in the arse it was and don't tend to mention the fact the guy doing it works in the city and earned enough in a month that he can spend the rest of the year cocking about without having to worry about putting food on the table.

'Aspirational telly' is arse and always has been arse, and only utter idiots think that's how the vast majority of the population have to be held up to that standard. Most of us have some level of practical skill but we also have to live in the real, modern world and as a result we sometimes pay people to do stuff.

The writer of the article can do one.

(Note : I'm somewhat irritated because coincidentally I have some floorboards to nail down and I've lost my hammer. How can you lose a sodding hammer?)

It is a rod for your back.
I have just finished the flood damaged room. The other bedroom is 90% done. Just a hallway to paper and paint b4 the carpet men come on the 13th. Not too much bother you may think, until you factor in the herself designed wardrobes I have made…

Still it is beginning to look quite pleasant, if I say so myself:)

I take the point in the original article about there being some relationship with the number of people who rent now. You just can't do much DIY when you're likely to bugger up your deposit.
I rent and I suspect my actual landlord wouldn't mind if I did some decorating, it couldn't be much worse than the patchy job he did himself anyway. The problem it the twats at the letting agency. Plus I see no point in decorating before the landlord actually does something about the ventilation so the mould in various places dies permanently.

All I got from that article was the author has all the practical skills of a pomegranate and is projecting his inadequacies on the greater public.

I do my own diy - plumbing - not gas, obviously, but I can run my own pipework, fit radiators, replace toilet cisterns etc.. I also do my own woodwork - hanging doors, fitting skirting or making frames, electrical work (within reason). Changing a ceiling rose or light fitting is NOT electrical work, IMO. I'll happily strip down my TV, cooker, washer or fridge to fix them and have done exactly that to varying degrees with all of them.

B&Q is shutting some stores? well, maybe if they didn't try to charge £4 for a dozen screws in a blister pack, people wouldn't be voting with their wallets. This looks like one area the local independent store is winning against big business - our local hardware/diy store is always busy. If you need screws, they'll sell you a box of them for less than what B&Q will charge for a handful. If you only need three, they'll sell you three, for pennies. They always seem to have something that will suit your needs and they know their stock intimately - something severely lacking in your average, indifferent, orange overalled buffoon.

I'm not a particularly dextrous person. Particularly when you look at one of my mates who I went to med school with and could happily change and bleed his brakes, convert a loft into a living space, strip down a boat motor and rebuild it etc.

I was taught how to wire a plug when I was eight. I wasn't taught much beyond what i picked up in secondary school. I'm not cackhanded but a simple job can take me a bit longer than it should. I simply couldn't trust myself to bleed the brakes or change the pads on the car. I will happily change the oil, swap wheels and do other bits and pieces. Similarly, I've changed the door handles in my new house but got someone in to fit locks to the bedrooms. Some of this was down to lack of time and equipment.

I know my limits and I'm aware of which things need or are best done by someone qualified. Must've spent £500 in B&Q in the past month.

DIY over here is big - there again a lot of people still dream of building their own house / having it built for them and doing a lot of the fixtures and fittings themselves.

We will be replacing the skylight in the upstairs bathroom this year as it has started leaking when we get a heavy wind from the south west (luckily that is only half a dozen times a year, it generally comes from the north), the window has been in their since the 70s and made of wood, so it is time it was replaced by a more modern Velux construction.

We will be doing it ourselves - or rather my brother-in-law and his son-in-law will be doing the donkey work and I'll be helping where I can... I am better at electrics, as that was taught in secondary school when I was a kid, whereas hardly anyone here knows how to wire a plug, you need a qualified electrician to do that... I even changed out the electric motor in the roller-blinds in the kitchen just before Christmas.

We gutted the ground floor when we moved in, removed 2 walls, put in a metal load bearing support, cased it up in a plasterboard housing and plastered the holes in the outside walls where 2 walls had joined them. We also removed the old wooden false ceiling and replaced it with plasterboard (the actual ceilings in Germany on more modern houses are generally re-enforced concrete and you need something to cover them up.

Likewise, another brother-in-law laid the cork tile flooring upstairs.

We also renewed 3 toilet cisterns and replaced 3 basins and removed / sealed plumbing for a kitchenette in one of the bedrooms (the previous owners had had financial problems and had rented out the 1st floor at some point).

An electrician friend put in a dozen new plugs and wired the roller blinds up and a window company put in a new windows (5M x 2M) and replaced the front door.

The only real "DIY" thing we didn't do ourselves was the wallpapering - mainly because of time, we needed it done quickly (a couple of days) and didn't have the time to do it ourselves (only a couple of hours in the evenings and at weekends.

You are expected to decorate over here.

Generally you can do what you want in terms of decorating the walls during your term. BUT even if you don't decorate during your stay, you usually have to repaint the walls in a neutral colour before leaving - even if it is just to give them a fresh coat of paint to hide any scuff marks or to cover up where cupboards etc. were and the paint behind hasn't faded as much.

Most landlords are open to "constructive" DIY in flats, as long as you discuss it with them in advance. Putting in a fitted wardrobe in a bedroom alcove, for example, is something many would see positively and they might even go 50-50 on the material with you.

In the last 8 years, I haven't lived anywhere where decorating was allowed( current flat is per written request to landlord only, so we may be able to hang some pictures)


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What she said.

I've done a lot of DIY in the past when it was the only way I could afford to make improvements to where I lived. I've also rewired 4 properties including brand new consumer units back in the days when, so long as they passed the relevant tests, anyone was allowed to do these things. And given a copy of the latest wiring regulations I could still do the job to the standard required.

However I have now reached the point where the standards of fit and finish that I want have outstripped my DIY abilities and therefore I provided that I can afford it I am happy to Pay A Professional, provided that I am sure they can do a quicker and neater job then I could manage.

So the answer to the question the original article writer posed is in fact "It's because you're a useless human being and are barely capable to tieing your own shoelaces?"

What a lot of DIYers conveniently forget is that most jobs are considerably easier with a second pair of hands, and some are in fact all but impossible without assistance. When you live on your own there is a limit to how many times you can call on your friends to help you out.

One of the last DIY projects I undertook was to board out two eve spaces either side of the top room in my house - both floor and sloping roof surfaces. I had a couple of friends help me with the first side, but it still took several weeks of evenings to complete. When it came to repeating the process on the other side I discovered that working on my own, it took well over twice as long to complete any task, and by the time I had finished many months later I had completely lost any appetite for further DIY for a long time.