To believe that men universally make a massive deal and faff out of DIY?

[BigButtons]

I know it’s a sweeping generalisation.
Having recently moved house into a house that needed stuff done- big and small- I am all the more determined to learn how to do jobs myself.
Big stuff I am leaving to skilled tradesmen.
putting up shelves, mounting tv’s on walls, smallish tiling re grouting jobs- re sealing bathroom- I wish I had been taught how to do those myself but I will get the tools and learn.
I have had people in- paid and unpaid - unpaid because they were male friends who offered their help- there was drama.
Mind you even my paid sparky took an age and seemed to feel the need to talk to me about everything. I just wanted him to fix the things that needed fixing, drink the tea and eat the biscuits and come round when he said he would.
Shouting, swearing, stress, forgotten tools, broken tools, just drama and neediness and everything taking an age.
I don’t think most women would do the drama.

Oh lord yes, ask DP to do a simple DIY task because I'm too short and I get crap excuses about needing a 'special tool' or that 'X' big job needs doing before my small DIY job can commence. Anything to kick it into the long grass.

Are you talking about tradesmen here or true DIY, you aren't clear. You can't really judge them the same. A sparky being late and faffing about on a job is totally different to a mate helping you out and finding that they don't have the right tools or something isn't as they thought it would be.

I do plenty of my own DIY and things never go as planned and I'm sure that it might look like I'm faffing about from the outside while I have to sort these things out. I don't think being a woman makes any difference. With things like DIY it is easy to be a critic.

Yes... but, as you haven't done it yet you might find it a bit more annoying that you think. I personally struggle a lot with needing to always, always having to go to bloody b&q for some missing tool or thing. It's never straightforward. Might just be me.

DH decided that on our only week off from work for the foreseeable future that he was going to "tidy" the kitchen up. So far, he's sanded all the worktops (without sealing the door so the whole house is covered in fecking dust), he's painting (I'm allergic to paint fumes) and the contents of said kitchen are all over the hall/dining room. The mess is unbelievable and I could cry. Oh, and I can't actually cook unless it involves the toaster. FFS.

I know now why I don't ever encourage him to do anything and the house is run down. It's like his common sense leaves the building the moment his tools come out of the garage.

It's simple you do it, swap jobs so you can do the DIY

No, not in my experience

Yes of course they do - it’s peacocking, showing how amazing they are and making sure you know how skilled and brilliant they are. So tedious.

Mine doesn't really make a faff out of it but he is an avoider. He'll leave things for weeks if not months after saying he'll get round to it until I pick up the tools and make a start. Then I let him come to mansplain how it's suppose to be done and he finishes the job not realising that was my plan all along.

Probably best to learn the skills and do some jobs before commenting. I'm not saying you are wrong about people making a meal out of minor jobs but...often they are more complicated than you think.

Different if you are paying an established tradesperson - they generally know what you are doing.

DH faffed so much over painting a room recently that I’ve decided to get someone in in future. I can’t see how it took so long, plus there’s paint where it shouldn’t be but he’s no inclination to fix it.

I think that might be a little unfair to DIYers, but I'd expect better from tradespeople.

I am a keen DIYer and very good at it, if I may say so myself. Thanks to the internet you don't really need anyone to teach you. That said you can give yourself a free education in many jobs by watching how the tradespeople you do employ work!

My partner just gets on with it if it’s something he can do. We mostly just pay for a tradesman though as it’s easier. We have a regular handyman who does lots for us and is brilliant.

My dad made a huge fuss of everything he did but he was just a cunt in general. 😅

Not in my experience. My husband (not a builder) self built our house, installed kitchen and bathroom, built a conservatory maintained our two cars and built a kit car for hobby racing, and did a million small jobs around the place without once expecting praise for it. He was a SAHD as well.

No - almost inevitably there is some issue that makes a small job into a much bigger stress than anticipated.

Drilling a hole that needs to be exact - suddenly find out that the composition of the wall makes that all but impossible to achieve. Or think you are drilling a small neat hole that is going to be nicely hidden, and suddenly a load of old plaster flakes away, so now you need to repair and paint so the damage is invisible. Unscrewing something old - suddenly find the screws are rusted through and shear off, leaving you struggling to get the damn things out!

For a DIY’er with basic skills you constantly come up against issues like this. It is how you gradually learn, but it can be really stressful, especially if you don’t particularly enjoy it and it rapidly starts to fill a precious weekend!!

Isn’t the op a bit sexist?

@Pandor Spot on! Plus most people doing causal DIY don't have the correct tools / good enough quality tools to start with.

This is true, and if you'd actually done the jobs you're planning to do you'd find out for yourself. Often you find that trying to do job A, something is wrong and you have to crack on with job B before you can sort job A. You think you're going to replace some rotten floorboards in the dining room and end up replacing the entire floor including joists while also digging up the adjoining kitchen floor, removing two skips of material and putting in joist hangers for a new floor there. And all you planned on was taking out a few boards in one room. Ask me how I know, go on...

Even small jobs can need unexpected tweaking or a tool that you hadn't anticipated needing.

I've no doubt there are some people who can't do DIY things without making a song and dance over it, but equally there are people who just quietly get efficiently on with the job.

My dh has to always go and 'tidy the garage' before he will make a start on any DIY project, no matter how small a job it is

A paid electrician - an actual tradesman you've hired to do a specific job - should absolutely not be behaving like that in your house. Not turning up, shouting, swearing, and drama are unacceptable. He should be behaving professionally while he's working in people's homes.
I hope you consider leaving a comment on checkatrade.
DIYers can do whatever they want but not tradesmen!

Nope not in my experience at all. I'm rubbish at DIY but my DH and DB are both quick, efficient and very skilled - thank goodness.

I have a theory on this. Once I divorced I had to actually pick up drill and use it myself rather than watching my exh make a pigs ear of things, silently not to dent his ego.

now I’m a reasonably skilled needlewomen. When I make something up from fabric to join it to other bits of fabric, I can look at my handy guide made by needle makes all over the world, and use that to select the right needle for the thread and fabric and purpose I need. The colour codes are same wherever you are in the world…all very sensible . I then have other guides showing me how to adjust foot pressure with lovely pictures showing various scenarios and what to do with dials. Simples.

so, I tootled off to diy shop to get equipped with a new electric drill, some drills bits and screws and raw plugs. “How hard can it be?” I thought to myself. “Ex made such hard work of having gerzillions of raw plugs, screws and always seemed to get it wrong and drill a hole too bog or too small” . I thought, I m going to equip myself with nice sets of matching raw plugs and screws for every scenario I need in my new house. 🤷🏼‍♀️ What I discovered was every manufacturer of raw plugs uses different code systems and colours, and there are no universal guides to matching screws with drill bits with raw plugs for different walls. there are guides that cover some systems, but no one unifying system . Readers, how stupid I was 🤦‍♀️🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

so I figure it’s to do with keeping a “profession” or “trade” closed. Builders will, over time get to grips with the various options by experience, and a lot of “well love, it isn’t that simple”, “it’s an art not a science” and therefore keep their trades closed and make everyone else trying to get to grips with it, including DIY, look like incompetent idiots. And that keeps the money flowing to the trades. How many women here have refused to let their DH do stuff cos they make a balls up of it and get a “professional “ in (Or vice versa)

whereas, sewing is not a ”Serious” profession or trade (literally guilds didn’t start till Edwardian times) , and the “little womin”, have small brains so we (manufacturers) have to make it simple for them. Yes, we’ll come up with a simple colour code and numbers and guide and they’ll be able to get it right.

I do now have my own handy chart for my house . Walls differ so I have rooms, walls, type of raw plug, colour, screws and drill bits all nicely spreadsheeted. But then I’m nearly OCD and bloody minded not to let the bastard manufacturers try to make it impossible 🤷🏼‍♀️

but, that’s just my theory 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Should add, it’s not just drilling holes.

“women’s” work domestically has always been recorded in handy guides form Mrs Beaton onwards, we use patterns, recipe books etc

”men’s” work it deliberately clouded in mystery- why don’t houses have a wiring and plumbing diagram for instance…oh…to make it fucking impossible to know where to access them to adjust, or how to avoid drilling in wrong places. There is an utter lack of standardisation and universal systems.

🤬

DP is supposed to be painting the outside of our house,he spent nine weeks preparing the back wall.By the time it was ready the weather had turned to shit and now I have no idea when he'll begin working on his masterpiece.

It’s a ploy to distract us from the fact that most of it’s dead easy if you have the right tools, so we don’t notice the only tools we don’t need are the men themselves.

To be clear- the friends who have offered to help have claimed they can do it easily- that the jobs are simple and they have the tools required.
people I pay I expect to leave me alone unless they need to to tell/ ask me something imply and I will supply beverages and biscuits.