When DIY becomes SOS

TwoUpTwoDown

Hi Everyone
What DIY projects have you attempted that resulted in disaster/failure/re-doing?
I am a keen DIY'er but not in the trade. We decided to put a patio in the back garden and bought a nice 2.7m circular paving kit in natural stone. The place where it was going at the bottom of the garden does have a slope so not the easiest location.
Anyway, started on Friday, hole dug by hand, type 1 brought round by barrow load and started to lay yesterday. One cracked slab later and a a wobbly patio, i realised that i may have bitten off more than i can chew!
Lifted all of it today, cleaned area and started again but just as bad.
Have decided to call in the experts! 
Just feel a bit deflated by it all and don't really accept defeat on things and hate to fail but trying to find a bright side such as less time battling with patio means more time with my family  

RelievedSheff

We didn't even attempt extending our patio ourselves. When we priced up the materials there wasn't a lot of difference in price for just materials as what a local company quoted to do the job. So we let the experts get on with it! 

markin

Did you put some sand down on top of the type 1?

Owain_Moneysaver

It took me a year to plaster the kitchen. 

daivid

My uncle built his own patio, crazy paving out of several big bags of random stones (flat but irregular shapes). It was a giant jigsaw puzzle as he selected stones one at a time and took a lot of time to complete! Looked great finished but definitely not a task for the faint hearted, to my knowledge he had no prior building experience either but had probably researched/asked advice and took his time to get it done.

InkedByrd

We decided to knock down wall splitting our dining room and kitchen  and rebuild it to give a bigger kitchen and office space. Husband is not trade as such but did summer jobs labouring for an uncle while at university. We are 2.5 years in and it has taken to pressure to work from home to get the flooring in office laid. It's only been stacked in the room since July 2018.
I so wish we had brought in the professionals

troffasky

InkedByrd said:

We are 2.5 years in and it has taken to pressure to work from home to get the flooring in office laid. It's only been stacked in the room since July 2018.

Obviously he's letting the flooring acclimatise a bit before laying it.

TELLIT01

Not myself, but a guy I worked with decided to construct his own patio.  Got genuine York Stone paving slabs, did a good job of levelling the ground but then decided to use builder's sand rather than sharp sand (or the other way round), in any event bought the wrong sand because it was cheaper.  Laid the first slab and tried to get it level using a pickaxe handle and broke the slab.  He's wasn't a quitter though so threw that slab to one side and used another with precisely the same result.

FreeBear

Owain_Moneysaver said: It took me a year to plaster the kitchen. 

I've got a wall under the stairs that has needs plastering for <mumble><mumble> years. So just one year to do a kitchen is pretty quick..

Owain_Moneysaver

FreeBear said:

Owain_Moneysaver said: It took me a year to plaster the kitchen. 

I've got a wall under the stairs that has needs plastering for <mumble><mumble> years. So just one year to do a kitchen is pretty quick..

It wasn't a year to get round to plastering - it was a year from starting plastering to finishing plastering. It would have cost £160 to get the whole room done by a local chap-who-plasters.  

markin

You aren't a diyer if you've never put a nail in a pipe, after just replacing that pipe.