Some of my procrastination is down to my level of DIY competence. I'm not very good at DIY and do my best to avoid it at all costs. I'm not terrible, but on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being a member of the master guild of builders/decorators/plumbers etc., I'm probably no better than mid-table at best, and possibly as low as a 2 depending on the job at hand. When decorating I've steadfastly shunned wallpaper for years. Just the thought of taking a radiator off a wall to paint behind it brings me out in a cold sweat, and so on. Age has certainly improved my abilities, so you can imagine how bad I once was. For a start, these days I take things more slowly. Back in the day I wanted to finish a job as quickly as possible and tended to go at things like a bull in a china shop. There are two legendary episodes in our household that exemplify why I'm best leaving this stuff alone.
The first comes from 20th October 1996. The reason I can remember this date so vividly is because I was decorating our then spare room ready to move my almost 2 year old son from his small room and cot into his new room with his first big bed. And whilst I was decorating I was listening to an epic football match on the radio between Newcastle and Manchester United which the Magpies won 5-0.
Anyway, the room had been stripped and carpet lifted to allow me to do the decorating (at least I'd done that - I often paint around things). We'd had a plumber round to service the boiler that afternoon, and I'd taken the opportunity to take out an emergency contract for plumbing emergencies - seemed like a sensible thing to do at the time, although I could've done without the £60 odd cost (times were harder then).
So boiler serviced, painting ongoing and a temporary halt for dinner after which I returned to the room to carry on my decorating. As the carpet was up, I thought I'd take the opportunity to fix a squeaky floorboard (do you know what's coming yet?). So powered screwdriver in hand (all the gear, no idea) I took a nice big screw and screwed the offending floorboard down. Right through a hot water pipe. I managed to quickly lift the floorboard, but what do you do then when hot water is squirting out through a pipe? Call the wife? No, she said, call the plumber. So I did. You can imaging that he was slightly incredulous both at what I'd done, and that I'd taken him up on his emergency contract so quickly - I reckon it was about two hours from the point he'd left the house after servicing the boiler. I never screw down floorboards now.
The second occurrence was in the same room. We'd bought a three door flat pack wardrobe from somewhere. I was assembling it (taking my time and following instructions, honest). I'd assembled the outer parts (sides, base, top and the instructions then said, "carefully lift the casing upright". So I did (on my own and that's probably where it all went wrong). It stood upright for a few seconds as I admired my work to date, and then slowly fell to one side ripping out the fixingsas it collapsed into its constituent parts on the floor. In the end I managed to salvage it, although one of the side had to be put on back to front due to the damage.
I haven't had any real disasters since then, and have even managed to rewire light switches and fixings without electrocuting myself, but normally whenever it's suggested that there's some DIY work of any description required, my wife's first response is "Let's get a man in". Well I would, but we're on lockdown, so it's down to me.....now where's the paintbrush?
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| Queen of all she surveys |
Until tomorrow....
#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives
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