Balancing not just the budget

doingitanyway wrote: »

I have been inspired by your DIY, so much so that I have signed up for a DIY course at my local college starting in late Autumn. If all goes to plan I will have more time soon but less money so doing some of the work myself will be :money: but also empowering. Thank you

Yay! :T

It is SO empowering DIA - I had no idea where to start but I have a good eye for design and a steady hand, and between books, YouTube and friends I am astonished what I can manage. A course is a good plan, I might look at that later in the year.

Just to give you an idea, I can now:

• strip wallpaper (using the flat attachment on my little steam cleaner)
• fill small holes in plaster
• sand walls
• paint walls
• put up towel rail, cupboard and shelves (including checking for wires etc behind where I want to put something, drilling the holes, and finding the appropriate thing to hold stuff up - turns out it matters what is behind the plaster, which I'd never thought about before, and shouldn't always be just screws)
• drill through tiles (needs a different kind of drill bit)
• take down a fitted roller blind and its holders, and get it all back up in one piece and working
• fit a new shower attachment (one of these clever things, that uses the holes already drilled for your shower riser rail)

Two things I would recommend are the drill I got from the Swedish shop - the design makes it easier to hold steady with smaller hands. I had been picking up others in different stores and some of them were heavy and awkward for me. And this book - very useful for understanding the background on how houses are put together and so why things work in a particular way. Oh, and if certain DIY stores are unhelpful, just go to another one. All the ones in the town where I work are useless, the staff are teenagers who have no more idea about stuff than I already found out via YouTube. The best one I have found is a big Wickes nearby, whose staff actually know what they are talking about - possibly because they have trade customers, but they have an info desk and have been brilliant with everything I've asked, totally polite and helpful even when it's very basic questions about 'have I definitely picked up the right thing here'. And on the opposite note, don't always believe friends just because they tell you they know what they're doing - I have already found one instance where he was not entirely right and although the work is ok, it should really have been done a little differently to be done properly.

After a few more weeks of painting I shall be having a go at fixing taps. I'll keep you posted


Rosa xx

It's doing little things in rented places that got me started too... replacing sink plugs, putting together flatpacks, etc. I was quite surprised to realise how much of a toolkit I already had


You're quite right about the prep too - the things I have got wrong are usually from not double checking.