Does anybody do DIY anymore?

Mistral001

I wanted to buy a friend a DIY book for Christmas. However I could not find any in any of the bookshops I tried. There were hundreds of cooking books and gardening books to choose from, but no DIY books to be found.

When I moved into my house about 20 years ago, I bought several DIY books then and if I can remember correctly there was plenty of choice of such books in the shops.

Maybe Youtube videos which have taken the place of the good old DIY books on decorating, putting up shelves, plaster repair and bathroom tiling, however the fact that I could not find ANY DIY books in ANY bookshop makes me wonder whether the DIY sector has a fundamental problem at the minute..

Lorian

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Collins-Complete-Manual-Albert-Jackson/dp/0007425953/

cod3

Such books exist on Amazon.

I try to do as much DIY as I can, but prefer to watch Youtube tutorials as I find them easier to follow.

dj1471

I'm surprised you managed to find a bookshop

Likewise I always go to YouTube, I think the books are a bit redundant these days.

trailingspouse

I'm surprised you can still find cookbooks too - if I need a specific recipe, I just google it these days.

Gloomendoom

Cookery books are popular and convenient gifts and, unlike DIY, there is always a new celebrity chef with an eager fan base.

Lorian

Another observation - I was taught many DIY skills by my father - general woodworking and repair, often by watching, and helping.

He did these things because he could not really afford to pay others to do these things that he could teach himself to do.

You don't see this happen so much nowadays.

He gave me the Collins book one Christmas, decades ago.

Mistral001

trailingspouse wrote: »

I'm surprised you can still find cookbooks too - if I need a specific recipe, I just google it these days.

Cookbooks by the celebrity chefs it would seem are the most prolific non-fiction books in bookshops these days. One bookshop I visited before Christmas had a least fifty titles - yet no DIY books.

London50

Check the Charity shops as many people from my generation not only had advise from a parent but also collected many D.I.Y, books as a backup and as stated with the internet coming along the younger generation would sooner use that for how to guides so well loved and looked after books like that end up on the charity shelves.

SandraX

My dad had a Times DIY book, this is from a good 30-35 years ago, still have it, plain English for the basics, very good. However, we (me and hubby) usually look up the net and post on the Screwfix forums, v helpful they are, hence not as many books in stores.

Carrot007

cod3 wrote: »

I try to do as much DIY as I can, but prefer to watch Youtube tutorials as I find them easier to follow.

I find youtube videos to be slow and take ages to get to the point.


But an online tutorial with pictures is much prefered!


A video is useful for some thing but most of youtube is unfortunatly 99% filler and a waste of time for doing the job in a reasonable time.