To ask for your straightforward DIY efforts that ended up being anything but?

[Tweedypie]

Absolutely at the end of my tether with decorating, new carpets have been laid and my husband said taking the door off to file it down as the new carpet is thicker would be easy........we now have something a horse would enjoy as a stable door as he's filed the wrong bloody end!
I'm so fed up and can't face a trip to B&Q for a new door yet.
What oh so simple DIY job have you tackled that ended up anything but easy?

I tried to put a wardrobe up myself, ended up in a and e with stitched in my hand after I used a KNIFE (what was I thinking!) To try and get a screw out I did wrong....

Have a massive scar to show for it !

I shall keep that in mind....we've new wardrobes being delivered Tuesday. I can't cope with anymore accidents here.

There was the time that dh built our small shed from the inside and therefore couldn't get out.

Grouting a bathroom. Thought it would be easy - wipe it on the gaps between tiles & rub off the excess. I was wrong. So very wrong. It took DAYS to finally scrub off all the grout & the final result wasn't any different to when I first started!

Hahaha my partner putting hooks in the back of a door - drilled right through. Then did it again 10 mins later on another door. We are crap at DIY!

Myself - peeling off woodchip from a wall and discovering (as chunks of it came away) that it was just gyproc held up with no more nails instead of a wall. Had to take the whole thing down and call a builder.

Poor builders we MIL in thought they just had to turn the way our door opened to accommodate a wheelchair ramp for FIL. A second measure just before they started lead to them discovering it was 1.5cm narrower than the legal minimum and even though his wheelchair fitted fine they had to widen the door. Which then involved moving an extractor fan, putting in a new lintel and moving a light switch. The builder said he'd never before wished so much that he hadn't bothered as he only remeasured to show the (very, very cute & now his girlfriend) woman from the council he was thorough and careful

Fitting a bastard toilet seat. Instructions are neither use nor orniment, YouTube tutorials useless. It would be easier to dig a pit outside and just be done with it.

Ahhhh digging a pit bravelurker that made me laugh 🤣🤣

Replacing bath sealant. On YouTube it comes out easily in one long strip, 5 hours of tugging and scraping it off in tiny bits!!!!

DH thought he would quickly give one wall of the living room a new lick of deep red paint one afternoon.

He had almost finished when he stepped off the step ladder and caught the edge of the full paint tray with the heel of his foot - flipping all the paint across the room. The lovely red paint went everywhere, up the cream sofa and new curtains and across the fireplace. It took HOURS to clean up and we were finding new small splatters for weeks after.

Nailing down the last floorboard and hearing a suspicious hissing noise on a Sunday evening, yep it was a waterpipe on the first floor. I had to put my finger over the hole while DH went out to find a shop open.

Moved into a new flat and the chimney breast wall had lurid wallpaper on it. The rest of the room was neutral and I was like oh I’ll quickly strip it off and give it a quick lick of paint for the time being.
Pulled the paper from the bottom and the plaster from the entire wall came with it. Also unearthed an actual fireplace that had just been boarded up.
My bf at the time had only popped to asda to do a shop and came back to absolute carnage.

Told my friend how easy strimming the garden was (I’d done it for years). That afternoon I strimmed the front garden and managed to flick a pebble up which resulted in me smashing the front window!

We have sooooooo many

1. Changing a manky ceiling rose to bespoke art deco roses - they take the old rose down, turn around to get the much larger rose and in the ten seconds this takes 50% of the ceiling comes down

1. Changing the light fitting in the downstairs loo (internal room), take old one down, discover an extra cable wire, test it, it's live. Have to get a sparks out to make safe (it's a live wire from upstairs)

1. Installing an outside tap off the cold water pipe from the garage (where the boiler is). OH uses a pipe cutter, so the whole pipe is cut in one go, hissss, it's the poxy gas pipe. Cue panic, turning gas off, getting Codent out, on a bank holiday no less. In OH defence the gas pipe was in the wrong size pipe (old house and a bodge it builder lived here previously).

1. Get the fuse box moved by a sparks, discover the water isn't earthed.

1. Have the chimney swept, discover the chimney stack is capped - we'd been using the wood burner for 4 months by this point, how we didn't get carbon monoxide poisoning is anyone's guess.

1. Paint the plain wood front door, sand it first to' key' the wood. I do a magnificent job. Within the next week the paint had blistered and spotted in the sunshine. Ended up with a new front door due to there being several locks taken off over time and pieces inserted into the gaps, and weakened the door, kindly pointed out by a police office friend, who lightly shouldered the door with it 'locked' and it popping open.

I'm sure there's more mishaps......

Posted about it at the time, but I'll share my mortification again...

Putting a trellis up in the garden and didn't tie back my very long hair. Hair got caught around the drill pulling my head into the drill and subsequently the wall.
Fortunately I had my phone in my pocket so was able to call dh to come and release me. The result was bruising, a rather large bald patch (Fortunately underneath) and whiplash from my head yanking to one side.

I now tie up my hair when doing diy 😂

Reclaiming the beautiful original floors from underneath some God awful nineties laminate. DH ran the industrial safety into a radiator pipe while I was out, didn't turn the water off and tried to stop it with a blue jaycloth.... Two days later having had that fixed, I ran over the power cable rendering it useless on a Sunday, we had one room left to do, the hire shop wasn't open and we had to return it and go back to work the next day. Cue 7 hours of using an edger to do a whole room and back problems for both of us for weeks after. The hire ship just did oh you could've kept it and just come in for a new lead no one else has it booked out....... It still makes me wince. Floors are lovely though!

*sander not safety

OYBBK DH's mate did that. He forgot to check the shed door was unlocked. He rang DH to go round and let him out.

Painting the skirting and architraves. I just can’t do it neatly at all, no matter how easy the videos look.

I have bought countless brushes, frog tapes, best primers. There’s white satin on the walls, the floor, on all of my joggers.

I got the ‘top rated’ primer/sealer thinking it would do the job for me, but it just runs everywhere and is stubborn to clean. It’s also left such a rough finish that all my efforts of sanding have gone to shit. I don’t understand how to not leave brush.

It’s been a year and it’s still not done.

The worst one was when I wanted to paint the hallway myself. I woke up, rocky theme in my head. Put my painting clothes on, got all the stuff ready - paint, roller, brushes, tape, ladders, dust sheets. All strategically placed, so everything was in reach when I needed it.

Pour paint onto the tray, dip the brush in ready to do the cutting in. Get to the top of the ladders and my stubby arms can’t reach the top of the wall

One of my exes finished painting for the day and decided to stamp the lid down with his foot.
The lid bent, his foot went right in the tin and wedged inside it.
Was a horrible mess.

I bought fabric and a pole to make a door curtain only to find out there is a massive, impenetrable lintel above the front door. I can't hang anything there.
DS managed to drill umpty shallow holes before I realised and made him stop. And I've got filler but no paint to touch it up.

@boringlyboring I did exactly the same but didn't want very tall DH to mock me when he got home, so I took the handle off the broom gaffer taped a brush on and did it anyway 😂

Bath sealant for me too! I thought it would be relatively easy to remove the old stuff & redo it
I hadn’t realised the total tool we bought our flat off had just (badly) put new sealant over the old mouldy stuff to cover it up. So it took aaaaages to scrape off the huge chunks of sealant and mould. Even using a special scraper & that weird greasy stuff that is supposed to make it easy to remove. I was up until about 4 am as I refused to leave it undone!

All of them. There is NEVER a simple DIY job. There is always something that goes wrong and it always takes at least 3 times as long as expected. Bloody nightmare.