DIY Disasters

In 2002 I put an offer in on a small Victorian house in the centre of Huddersfield that I planned to renovate.

I went into a frenzy ripping out bathroom suites, pulling down plasterboard, black lime plaster, and dated interior decor. There were old kitchen tiles, decrepit paving slabs, cheap ceramic tiles and I cleared everything out. It was great fun and took just a few days. But little did I know that putting it all back wasn’t easy and certainly wasn’t cheap.

I spent literally weeks of my life just driving to and walking round the large sheds and builders merchants. It took a small fortune to resurrect that property and most of that was on hugely marked up building materials from the usual suspects. There had to be a better way…

In 2007, I teamed up with a large building materials manufacturer to create a one-stop-shop online. Knowing what I knew about the plight of DIYers, I built a website called buildersuperstore.co.uk and signed up the leading UK building supplies brands. Since then we have tried to provide honest service, quality products, at good value and quickly.

Submitted by Tom Klein.

I moved into a new home with my wife last month, its a fairly modern home and looked like only recently had it been refurbished and decorated. We loved it instantly and decided to put an offer in, which was accepted. But unfortunately we got a bit of a surprise when we moved in!

I’m guessing the last owners couldn’t be bothered or couldn’t afford the decorating costs. They had not moved the furniture when decorating. So when the furniture was moved there were shapes left on the wall depicting where a tallboy was, a chest of drawers, bookshelves and so on.

So this meant redecorating every room in the house, the furniture was a brilliant disguise! A costly job for us though, as you can imagine I was far from happy!

Submitted by Karl Crooks.

It was time that our little girls bedroom got a make over, and we finally got round to doing it!

We striped all the walls on the Saturday and were going to paint Sunday with it being bank holiday we had a bit of spare time.

Anyway, on Saturday night I told the girls they could have a bit of fun on the walls and draw on them. Worse mistake I’ve made to date!

They drew with pencil and pen, and to be honest they weren’t bad drawings, but after painting over the walls and letting them dry the drawings are still visible!

Princess’ and names all over the bedroom! I call this a decorating disaster!

Submitted by Daisy Ledmester.

I decided to concrete my path down the side of my garage, shouldn’t be a hard job at all really. Had my son mixing for me, give him the correct measurements etc. 5 sharp sand to 1 cement.
Anyway, as I was screeding back I had one foot in the end of the concrete all the time, I thought to myself it it’s going to burn I will feel it anyway, wont I?
Well what a mistake that turned out to be! Finished the concreting job with ease, if I’m honest!
Took my trainers off when I got inside only to find…
That concrete had gone through a hole in my shoe and now my sock was stuck to the inside of it! Luckily I only had minimum burns and after going to hospital they explained how lucky I really was!
Next time I’ll remember my PPE!

Submitted by Josh Kinder.

Last week I went round to a mates as he had been painting and decorating his kitchen as a bit of a surprise for the wife’s return.

I got round then to find the walls were a bright orange colour, and I thought it was a bit of a strange choice for a kitchen?

So I took it upon myself to ask him ‘ why bright orange?‘ I didn’t want to put a downer on his work because he’d done a great job but I still couldn’t work out the colour thing!

Well he replied ‘Bright Orange? Its a nice peach colour?’ At this point he decided to remember he was colour blind!

His wife luckily saw the funny side and she re-decorated the room herself when she was home!

Submitted by Bruce Kennedy.

New fridge freezer needed water supply. Well toilet was in room above and 10mm was big enough so needed to cut channel down the wall. So two hacks saw blades with some spaces between and cut two lines down the plaster so I could bury pipe in wall. Everything was going according to plan, straight down the wall until level with light switch god it hurt and I woke up lying on the floor. I had not checked for cables I had never expected to find horizontal cables coming from switch although I knew it was permitted and I had a cable tracing machine but never bothered to use it.

Seems when extension was built the guy wiring had not gone up and around with strapers for two way light switch but had taken shortest route. Also no capping used so not felt anything with saw. It is now in mini trunking but same route. Also was surprised as getting such a belt I know it takes 40ms for the RCD to trip but never realised what a belt it could give you in that 40ms.

Lucky I suppose it was RCD protected had fitted RCD’s to protect kids never thought I would be testing it that way. Did stick RCD tester on supply and it did pass tripping at less than 30ma and at 5x it was tripping within the 40ms.

Worst was the embarrassment at getting a shock. I should have known better I have worked with electricity all my working live and I knew what the regulations said and that there could have been a cable there and still did not check.

Submitted by John B.

A couple of days ago my friends washing machine broke down, and he bought a new one. Anyway he didn’t want to pay the money for someone to come and fit it, he kept moaning and moaning about money, so as you do my response was ‘ill fit it for you!’

After all fitting a washing machine is hardly a hard task, simply fit the hot and cold feed, how hard could it be?

Not a difficult task at all I told myself, but I was stuck for room, so we moved the gas cooker out the way to make the job an easier one.

We even switched off the gas and disconnected the gas cooker pipe which was a standard bayonet fitting, everything is going fine at this point, I continued the plumbing as normal, made sure I fitted everything correctly, didn’t want to let my mate down after all.

I went outside switched the gas back on, just after putting the cooker back in place. Even though the bayonet is self-sealing so in hindsight I didn’t need to switch it off, but luckily I did.

When the washing machine started there was a horrible smell of what seemed to be gas, yes I had successfully plumbed into the gas pipe!

Anyway the gas board came round and had to condemned most of his homes gas fittings they were that out of date, so just doing my mate a favour cost me a fortune!

Submitted by Karl Frubes.

I moved into my house to years ago, and now I’ve been there a while I decided it was time for an extension, and thought a new kitchen would be a great idea, then I’ll be able to make room for a playroom for the kids.

Anyway I rang a few local builders and they priced me at 500 quid for knocking one wall down, then and extra 6 grand for the extension itself, I told the builders I would knock the wall down myself, and hired out the correct equipment for the job, after all anyway to save a few quid!

The builders turned up Monday morning after I did great job over the weekend, anyway you can imagine the surprise I got when the boss knocked at my door when he arrived only to point out id knocked 1.5m from the left of the wall instead of the right side!

Submitted by John Jim Jacobs.

My sister and brother-in-law have a solarium attached to their home that has been unfinished for 8 years. They have had intentions of renovating it, but I get the impression that the project is overwhelming. It is currently two levels and is enclosed with a glass structure that leaks by the house. The siding on the house is now rotting. The retaining wall and most of the flooring is still concrete. The stairs going outside of the house are still plywood. It is scary because it has turned into a dumpster zone and is quickly becoming a danger zone. Anything they don’t want ends up out there or they don’t have anywhere to store something it goes out there. [click to continue…]

Submitted by Lorrinda.