DIY disasters

12 years ago

Have you or anyone in your family ever suffered from a DIY (do-it-yourself) disaster? Do you have an over-confident partner or family member who think they're better than they really are when it comes to hanging frames, putting up shelves or assembling flat pack furniture?

If you do, you're not alone. In the UK, Brits spend £169 million rectifying their DIY mistakes!

Share your mishaps and I bet that we'll all pick up the phone to a pro next time...

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Steve A.

9 years ago

A long, long time ago in a town far, far away we owned a 1930's semi which needed completely re-plumbing. Not being afraid of the task (or perhaps a bit ignorant of the complexity) I did it myself and all was going to plan with a new wash basin fixed to the wall but not connected to the drain and all the pipework run under the floorboards and connected to the taps. Now being a clever sort of fellow, I put the plug in the sink to prevent any "mishaps" should a tap get accidentally turned on.

From deep in the house, the voice of my wife asked if I would be much longer as the nailing down of the floorboards was causing a problem with TV so in order to speed things up, I nailed through the last board in the centre forgetting that the run of new pipe was underneath.

There was a short panic, a frantic tearing up of the board and a subsequent arc of water flying above my head and neatly landing in the empty basin. I could not have planned this disaster better but when the sink started to fill up, I got a bowl underneath it and gently removed the plug whereupon the bowl filled whilst the arc of escaping water continued the fill from above.

As panic had now set in and I was unable to get downstairs to turn off the stopcock, I simply emptied the bowl into the basin in a moment of absolute brilliance. Having re-invented perpetual motion, I then had to yell instructions downstairs so that said TV complainer could turn off the stopcock.

Her logic of suggesting that the next bowlful should be emptied down the WC was not received with a good heart.

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Comments (11)

C H
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
After seeing a picture in a magazine - similar to the attached, I decided to paint the main bedroom in NAVY blue including the ceiling - it sucked all the light out & it felt like a cave!! Needless to say it lasted 2 days while I went out to buy some cream paint & so 4 coats later the room re-appeared. I did not take any pictures partly because they would have been too dark and partly due to embarrassment ............!
Daisy England
9 years ago
I'm married to a pro and my son is a pro too. Both useful. Hubby is very good at everything DIY related but can't cook a meal!!!
K. Donovan
9 years ago
Our worst DIY disaster involved a shelf full of very heavy vases, a crumbling plaster wall and a trip to A & E in an ambulance. We've learned a lot since then. We inherited the DIY disasters of previous owners in our current property though and with every room we start work on, we just keep finding them. When we removed the skirting boards in the dining room to replace these, we discovered that the wall between the kitchen and dining room didn't actually go to the floor but was suspended from the ceiling. We also found the electrics for the shower bundled into a carrier bag under the shower next to the drain. My dad is an electrician and was not impressed!
spookyduderino
9 years ago
Ha ha, this is the thread for me! Every house I've ever lived in has had hidden disasters waiting to happen: first flat - new kitchen, drilled the wall for the wall units and the wall crumbled into the cavity of the flat below; first house - run down 1960's semi, decided to replace the unsightly timber front porch, unfortunately the builders had used the soft pine wood in place of a lintel, so when the porch came out the upstairs front brick elevation collapsed. Its amazing how many building Regs can be avoided by builders lashing up houses on piecework :/
Sonia
9 years ago
Back in the 80's my husband was a keen DIYer, so everything was never finished off properly - lumpy plastering, wonky kitchen cupboards installed as we never had the walls skimmed first, and of course the dreaded electrical work (new sockets and wiring all over the place!). Those were the days before proper regulations made the world a safer place. He later had nightmares about the wiring, and after a small inheritance, we had the whole house rewired by a professional electrician. Phew!
C H
9 years ago
Ha Ha webuser_912970 brilliant!!
Lisa Hardman
9 years ago
We bought this house with some fabulous DIY inovitive ideas.... When fitting a bath don't forget the car jack to hold it up? When fitting an airvent, don't bother with drilling, plus and screws. No no, blue tack works just as well? Oh and just one more if many, don't attach a skirting board to the wall, bracket it too the floor. It's amazing what other people thinks a good idea.....
suesigngirl
9 years ago
My attempts to fit lino or carpet because "it looks so easy when you watch a professional..." They make it look easy because they've had years of practice and they also know what they're doing....unlike me!
Gerry Rust
9 years ago
I have had, or inherited, so many DIY disasters I could write a book. One of the earliest was, having papered and painted the walls of the living room of our first home, my then husband decided to 'unfasten' the radiator to paint behind it only to unleash a plume of oily black water all over said walls. The fact that I couldn't stop laughing didn't help matters much, as he had a complete sense of humour failure and kept yelling at me to 'find the stop cock'. He might as well have asked me to find the lost treasure of the Incas :D Another source of entertainment was my flat in London, the previous owner had to make various 'improvements' in order to get mortgage approval. He was also called Jerry and brought a whole new meaning to the term 'jerry built' as he bodged his way through the list at speed. My favourite was the discovery, when we had the bathroom refitted, that the reason the toilet sat on a plinth was that he had made the hole for the waste pipe in the wrong place (repeatedly) and stuffed the resulting huge cavity with newspaper and other rubbish, then plastered over it. I kind of missed it though as I always joked about ascending the throne...
Judith Evans
9 years ago
webuser_912970 Thank you for sharing your hilarious story. I have a wonderful mental image of it all.

Our best disaster was when we lived in Canada in an old house with a basement. Many basements flood when the copious amounts snow melt - and ours was no exception, so my husband (yes, it was his decision not mine) decided to drill a hole in the concrete floor to allow the water to drain away. Simple. Dead easy. So, having drilled said hole and removed drill from hole, imagine our surprise when, instead of the water gurgling downwards, we had a six foot fountain! Seems the house was sitting on top of an artesian well......