Taking a course to help with DIY/home reno

[TheCosyOpalSeal]

We've lived in our house 3 years, we have a 6 and 2 year old so have only done basic decoration. We've already spent tens of thousands on a surprise full rewire, full new heating system and now a new roof.

This has used up any money we would have had to update the kitchen and bathroom etc which also need doing.

I absolutely love learning. I've spent the last 3 years also doing university courses to supplement my job (provided by my employer and industry education providers).

I've decided to take a break from additional courses through work. But am debating taking on a distance or evening course that will help me with some diy/renovating projects at home.

I've checked my local college and they provide quite a range of courses suitable.

My question is, which courses would you say are more beneficial?

There's electrics (we have some lights that need fitting and could do with adding some switches or moving existing in our utility room).

Plastering? We have some artex ceilings that need skimming and small patches still to be plastered from the moving of the boiler.

Carpentry? We also have some boxing in that needs doing and I was debating some small projects to help with a temporary reno of the kitchen

Tiling? For when we come to do the bathroom?

The list goes on... Has anyone found any courses particularly helpful in taking on some of their own renovations?

We also need a large area of patio repointed or even just a whole new patio if anyone knows of courses suitable to that?

I've watched YouTube videos but would feel more confident having done some actual basic learning so I know where to start.

Thanks

My husband did a plastering course about 10yrs ago and it was well worth the time and money. He’s skimmed over 4 artex ceilings, fixed a partly missing ceiling and plastered several walls including a lime wall.

Are you putting in a new bathroom, or just re-tiling? Plumbing is pretty easy and not worth paying a plumber to do. Same with tiling - easy and not worth paying someone. If you have some oddly shaped areas to tile or more than one large area to do, I would say it may be beneficial to do a short course on tiling if you need some confidence before starting. My husband HATES tiling but admits it is pretty easy, just boring and time consuming.

I doubt you need a course for fitting lights, but you may for the more intricate things. My husband didn’t take an electricals course and has always been fine with moving and adding sockets/switches but I’m not sure if you would need them testing by an electrician after you do this, in which case it might not be much different in price for them to just do it for you. He also rewired our whole house last year as the cost was astronomical for our weirdly laid out Georgian house. He had that fully checked and certificated by an electrician who also put in 2 new fuse boxes. If you feel you need confidence and have quite a few things to move about or replace I can see it being worth the money to learn this yourself as electricians are pretty expensive to hire and we found it difficult to find a trustworthy tradesman.

patio laying and repointing is also not a particularly skilled job so you can do that without needing a course. YouTube will have plenty of videos. Just get the depth and materials right to lay a new patio. My husband did ours 2 or 3 years ago and I’ve just noticed some of the pointing needs redoing so maybe he isn’t great at that 😄. Depending on what sort of house you have, you could buy seconds patio stones. We contacted a local business we found on eBay who provided 2 big crates of patio stones graded as seconds as it wouldn’t have suited our old house to have a perfect shiny patio, we preferred a crazy paving look. It is time consuming though and I haven’t seen any courses at all for patio laying.

carpentry I can imagine needs you to have some aptitude. I’d be useless so there’s no point me trying. My husband does the simple stuff like altering doors, replacing skirting, panelling, fitting the kitchen etc but did not even attempt the pelmet for the kitchen units as he didn’t want to mess up any angles. I’d suggest if you have any difficult joinery to do that you just pay someone to do it, unless you feel you may have a gift for woodwork 😄.

it’s so hard isn’t it trying to renovate a house when you have kids. Mine are 5 and 3 now and we’ve been here 4 years. We thought we’d be finished by now but we’re barely halfway in the house and about 25% done in the garden. It feels never-ending both in time and cost.