Hardest DIY jobs

[opps]

Strangeways 9 month left, a couple of courses came up, plastering, which i hated, but should of took but did Paint and decorate which i'm good at.

Along the course, i had to prepare and gloss a wall, about, seven yards(21ft) long and over twelve foot high, i mixed my own paint, which was allowed, but added linseed oil, all the lads said i'm a pro, then i told em. what i had done.

next day dragged in the office, was called a "bit" of a cheater, i told him my dad taught me,( how many people get called to gloss walls nowadays?)

What was the linseed oil there for, if i couldn't use it?

How many people under 30 yrs old can gloss a wall?
All aswers on a tnread please

I use Owatrol oil which is linseed oil based- great stuff

 

[Donkmeister]

How many people under 30 yrs old can gloss a wall?
All aswers on a tnread please

I painted 3 walls in vinyl silk when I was 29... pah, close but no cigar

I always wondered when the trend for glossed walls was, I remember spending a summer removing gloss-painted vinyl wallpaper from my parents house - the steam just couldn't permeate through no matter how many slashes I made with a stanley knife!

Ladylola - I have to admit that I've never done any great amount of proper cutting-in and prefer to leave an extra couple of days for the paint to harden before applying masking tape to do the next colour. Whether it's because I find masking tape easier or whether I'm a rank amateur I don't know (I suspect the latter!).

 

[opps]

Masking tape!!!!

i use it to protect carpet but it is not suitable for cutting in. A 2.5/3 inch brush will give you a better finish without bleed

 

[johnheritage]

In terms of something everyday people (and it'll be guys basically) will think they can have a try at, plastering. "It's like spreading icing!" "Nah... nah, it's not....", says my sore arm.

I watched a guy who'd been doing it for 50 years do it with his hand a foot in front of me (as I tried to take in every detail of what he was doing with the trowel) and it was like watching magic. He'd already had a heart attack and was on hand fulls of pills everyday, but was moving like lightning and getting it out spirit level flat, by eye, with what seemed like no struggle.

Installing PVC's is easy by comparison man!

Just make sure you measure, thrice. Even better, have someone else measure it without telling them what you got, so you know it's close if they give something similar back. The last ones I did, the guys making them actually cut them short. PVCs take ZERO practice, just careful measuring.

If you're pulling an old window, measure the existing frame. And, unless you're ready to do some grinding and deal with the desert storm of orange dust, aim for being slightly under as opposed to over.

It's a varying spectrum tho' innit? Some people are just flat out terrible. Others are pretty handy. I know a lot of people can't wire a plug. I've literally lost count of the number of times I've just had to plug something in or switch it on for people. My ICT teacher at secondary school needed us to show her how to turn her own laptop on.

Laurence Llewelyn Bowen and B&Q have a lot to answer for. There must be millions of homes in the UK alone filled with absolute failures in terms of DIY, because they've seen the program and then gone to B&Q thinking "This'll be easy, it only took them 10 minutes, just buy a toilet, bath, electric shower, boiler, gas fire, flooring and it's done!". I also blame him (and the other day time house flip programs) for the economic disaster. In that they made people believe they could mortgage a £250,000 house on a falsified income, flip it and become a millionaire in one step. Then they all failed, bankrolled and the tax payers bail it. <------ this is part joking, part serious.

 

[Wangerman]

I am trying to put together a list of the most deceptively difficult DIY tasks that shouldn't be taken on by a novice...like plastering a ceiling? Anybody got any other good suggestions?

Thanks S

Installing a kitchen designed by Howdens

 

[A1chippy]

fitting ikea kitchen nightmarejavascript:emoticon('')

 

[Ouch77]

Before I started the renovation I never even owned a plasterers float. Since then I've plastered 3 room and patched up far too many electrics chases.

I'm still not sure if I like plastering much, the results seem varied, but I certainly don't like having to clean the buckets and tools afterwards - its invariably in the dark, and recently in sub zero temperatures. Not had the bottle to do ceilings yet.

Least favourite job? Probably anything involving drains. To me they're magical things that take away unwanted 'stuff' - when they go wrong I really don't want anything to do with them.

 

[digdilem]

It is personal.

The jobs I always avoid are: carpeting, vinyl and plastering.

Everything else I've either done already or am up for trying, but those I always screw up.

 

[jetex]

I'm reasonably good a most things, but the one thing that totally baffles me is the wiring for the hall and landing, where you can switch on a light downstairs, then go upstairs and turn it off.

 

[Muddymike]

I am good at most mechanical things but once helped a pal change the heater matrix in a Rover SD1. What a nightmare, We came to the conclusion that hat when these cars were built the first thing to go into the bare shell was, you guessed it!

 

[lily694]

for me,the hardest DIY I have encountered is making my room a sound proof room, one little mistake will have to re do all of it

 

[ladylola]

one little mistake will have to re do all of it

If we rebuilt everything after one little mistake nothing would ever get built. I've seen what can only be described as bloody big cock ups gotten around. Funniliy enough I've a friend in the car industry and he struggles to get his head around the concept in the building industry that we work around our problems, in his industry if there's a problem it's just rejected and replacements sent for, end of.

 

[foxhole]

I'm good at everything, except being modest.

 

[petersmith1]

Muddymike has my sympathy. I changed the heater matrix on my 1989 audi coupe. Had to strip out the seats to get dash out then take everything else out right down to the bulkhead. There was only one thing left you could take out of the car.. the matrix assy. But it didn't stop there, I then had to dismantle an undismantleable assy on the bench and fit a new core. I was so
Knackered after 8 hours I had to get the wife in to get the dash back.

 

[RedHerring2]

My sympathies to the heroes of heater matrix exchange.
I did my Landie Disco a couple of years ago.
Put everything back and heater gets nice 'n hot now.....but the bloody blower won't work.
It worked fine before!
It's been like that for the last couple of years. Only when it gets to near freezing is it really missed.