What DIY have you done today?

[Jimmyneutronsforehead]

A thread to share the things big and small that you've started, finished, planned or conceptualised.

Inspired by the lovely posters on the What have you done in the garden today threads.

To clarify... obviously the paint swatches are painted not printed so they don't use CYMK - not sure what system they do use but it's not RGB.

That's helpful thank you.

I'm going to a fabric mill next weekend and next to it there's a dual dulux and crown trade centre so if none of the valspar pots are what im looking for I will hopefully be able to find a tester pot of actual Bright Bluejay

Buying paint is a minefield! Fortunately we only have two more rooms to paint and already know what colours we're choosing as we've used them in previous houses. The other rooms are having wallpaper.

It's so hot, I've done very little DIY so far this week - just laid a small area of floorboards to infill where the PO had an inset sunken doormat with horrid fitted carpet around it.

Ultimately, all the floorboards (a mix of Georgian and new) will require staining/waxing, but for now I've been able to lay my lovely new sisal doormat. It's so nice to come in and not trip over the uneven floor!

I went through to DPs this morning and I've looked at the paint samples he's brought and although they're not what I originally wanted, I really like all of them and now I am even more spoilt for choice.

I'm going to put some swatches on the wall and give it a few days to decide which I like best.

DH has laid new flooring in the main bathroom this week which given the heat upstairs is above and beyond the call of duty really, but he did promise to get it finished by the end of this month. I’m supervising the finishing touches (mainly by saying “you’re not going to leave it like that are you?”)

I unblocked the sick, had to undo the U bend, that was fun.

I think we've finally decided on a floor tile for the hallway and downstairs loo. Or rather, I presented a top 3 of tile samples and my co-owner had a slight preference for the Wrong One, so I pushed through the Right One

The hopefully future plumber/tiler is currently working on a friend's bathroom. Hard to get good reasonably priced tradespeople here so I'm waiting for her review. Wonder whether I should try the tiling myself.

There are 2 layers of tiles to remove and I think I'll do the removal if it saves enough money, the library rents out SDS drills for £10 a day. The women on Instagram have made me believe it's not that hard...

Have swatched a lot of blues today. Don't think the camera has picked up how green some of them are, but Kate's ring is definitely more of a dark teal than blue. It is the one DS says he prefers and it is his room, but I just don't really like it. I don't want to paint a whole wall and risk it.

I am on the fence between bright bluejay from crown and the indigo flame from valspar which do look true to their photos on the wall.

Installation of ceiling fan largely complete !

It was a bit of hassle - had to do some woodwork to put a brace in the loft to hang it, but it doesn't have to be neat.

Fan itself looks swish and modern. RC works well but I would like the light to be a bit dimmer (might modify the circuit to do that).

I underestimated how much air it would draw in from the window. As it rotates it draws in the cool air, so having it on at night should produce quite a cooling effect.

Speed 6 is chopper level and I was worried I might be sucked in.

The instructions left something to be desired. "Place the controller in the bracket and arrange the wires" loosely translates to "stuff the thing in there and cram the excessively long wiring we have provided anyway you can to make it all fit". I might make some mods to that as I am a bit of a perfectionist, even if it is all hidden away and LV.

Today after prepping the walls and doing some last touch ups with the white, I've managed to have an allergic reaction. Started off a small blob and then took over my whole left leg. Luckily no intense swelling but very mild swelling with very itchy hives all up and down my left leg. Felt like I'd been attacked by fire ants.

With any luck DSs room, bar skirtings and architraves will be done by Monday. We are going to just do the whole houses skirtings and architraves all at once when everything else has been done as we're undecided as to whether to keep a lot of the skirting or whether to replace for a bit of a higher skirting board.

DP decided to treat himself to a 3d printer last week and it's been wonderful printing off odd tools that make decorating a bit more accessible and easier to manage.

That sounds like a massive paint project @Jimmyneutronsforehead! And well done @GasPanic, would a dimmer work? Seems easier to me, but then I've no experience with circuits.

No big jobs here - been working on small niggling things. Better tape storage. Cut a spray paint template for the bin, number and an apple for the street name. Repaired some kitchen tongs.

I tried the Instagram trend of sticking tissue paper on the side of your door, but I'm not convinced yet. I need to do a better job sealing it, the heat wave made it come off a bit.

Not much DIY going on here due to the heat. DH replaced some silicone sealant in the main bathroom but it just would not cure so that all has to come out again. Same with painting woodwork, it’s just not the weather for it.

We are off on holiday this weekend and when we get back I am going to draw up a proper ‘schedule of works’ so we can get some rooms (and the garden jobs) totally finished before Christmas rather than bitting and bobbing here and there. Fortunately he agrees he needs a project manager 😁

I too am gritting my teeth that things will be finished before christmas but only if I assume the role of project manager.

I don't feel confident. Asked DP to mask off some walls and it looked like a gang of chimpanzees had gone loose in the house.

His excuse was he was a labourer by trade so he wasn't used to doing delicate and attention to detail stuff. Fortunately the rest of the house will just be white (for now) so it doesn't really matter if he's careful to an extent as long as he's not knocking buckets of paint and making careless splodges and spills.

What should have been the absolute final job in the house was getting new carpet fitted in the sitting room and hall and stairs, which we hoped to do before last Christmas! But we adopted two little dogs and they had no concept of house training so it was sensible to put that off until this year (they are brilliant now unless ill).

Unfortunately, we do work better with deadlines so putting back the carpet fitting meant we didn’t get lots of other things done which needed doing before that.

I am determined to have a new carpet by Christmas (the current one was here when we moved in 10 years ago!) so once we are back from holiday I’ll ring the fitter and get him booked in for December so we have a deadline to meet and then work backwards from that.

I actually think you've gone about it the right way @DameProfessorIDareSay when we got our last puppies they managed to do thousands of pounds worth of damage in one day after we had just had a new carpet down and new sofa.

They'd broken out of their crate, we suspect with the help of the cat as the cat had been observed doing this again after the fact, and they had managed to rip through the carpet and underlay, eat the stairs, rip through the sofa, drag off our skirting boards in the hall, toppled a bookcase that was wall mounted, knocked the tv off the tv stand and in the midst of their whirling dervishness had unplugged the freezer and it had fully defrosted before we noticed that it had been knocked out of the socket even though we were only out for a few hours.

This was totally out of character behaviour for them and thankfully did not happen again but I remember just throwing what was left of a bag of dog food down for them and some water and took myself off to bed to cry for a few hours because I couldn't even look at them.

I just wanted to open the front door and let them run off into the sunset. Logic and compassion got the better of me, but I had no idea they had the potential to be so destructive.

They grew to be the most calm and loyal dogs I'd ever owned but the puppy times were relentless and we really just should have waited to get new furniture and carpets.

OMG @Jimmyneutronsforehead !!

Were they baby velociraptors?

A few pees and poos pale into insignificance compared to that…

(Although one of ours did do a massive wee on the bed while looking me straight in the eye 🫪
I had just put a new quilt and fresh bedding on so that did bring me to tears!)

Blimey @Jimmyneutronsforehead, no wonder you just threw their food down and decamped to bed! 😱

The only stuff I've done is prep and undercoat a lovely Georgian door, make a couple more cushions and plant two new perennials in larger pots (hoping they survive, but I'm watering frequently so they should be ok).

We also need to get a wriggle on with the renovations as I don't fancy another Christmas with no boiler, working cooker or kitchen tap! I've told DH that if the kitchen bits aren't done by 1st Sept I'm putting the house on the market. Only kidding, but need to motivate him somehow (trouble is, he's busy building someone else's extension and paying customers take precedence 🙄)

Yes I think they were velociraptors. The little buggers. They potty trained really quickly so I knew it must all be going too good to be true. Thankfully many many years ago now. No dogs left, just one acme produced Taz of Tasmania 7 year old who doesn't know what sleep or danger are, know where his body is in either time or space, with ever growing limbs.

Cripes 😱 glad I've only got two cats, scratched furniture and the odd hairball vom doesn't seem so bad now.

Today I've requested quotes for renovating the downstairs loo. I think replacing a toilet, moving a sink, (re)moving a stack overflow, and tiling it + the hallway are all a bit beyond me. Unless anyone has tiling tips? To seal or not to seal?

I'm planning to save money on tiles by having a recessed doormat well 😁 Might rent an SDS drill to remove 2 layers of old tiles, it's only a tenner a day.

I've been painting this weekend - our reclaimed dining room door in Edward Bulmer Pompadour eggshell and started emulsioning the snug in F&B Inchyra Blue which we've had before in the hall, stairs, landing at our previous house. Originally (last year) I painted the snug pink, but have since decided it just didn't work with everything else in the room 🙄

Meanwhile, DH has been building a cooker hood which hopefully when finished will resemble a deVOL one I've seen.

Huge change of plan here - I decided the Inchyra Blue was too similar to De Nimes which is in our bedroom! Fortunately I hadn't gone too far with the walls - and hadn't started the windows which are tiny Georgian panes, so the eggshell at least has been returned - and I've reverted to the pink 🙄

That took me a big chunk of Wednesday evening and now you'd never know the room was briefly blue! Yesterday I swapped curtains in the two living spaces and I'm at peace with the snug now.

This afternoon I've been painting the cooker hood which isn't quite finished but I couldn't resist priming and first coating it.

Not sure if it's just me, but the heatwaves have meant most DIY has ground to a halt here!

I think all I've done inside since my last post is paint a pair of vintage cabinets (Lamp Black, but need to decide on a design for the doors) and paint a tromp l'oeil frame for an original still life we paid £10 for.

We did manage to move some stuff around in the garden at the weekend and it looks much better out there now.

Yes I think thats where we are at too. The heatwave has just stopped everything. It was making things dry too fast and crack so we have just waited for cooler weather, then the 6 week holidays started and doing DIY with DS around is like 1 step forward 2 steps back.

I feel like I need a solid week of 18-22° and at least 1 night of 10 hours of sleep before I can start back up again.

Same here with the heat. We have been decluttering and gardening instead mostly. DH has done some small jobs that don’t involve paint or silicon, but everything else is on hold until it’s a bit cooler.

I may chivvy him into digging out the front drain which has been blocked for ages; it’s an area that’s in shade from noon onwards so not too hot to work there. I’ll go out there with a pickaxe later, guaranteed to get him moving if he thinks I might start bashing things 😅

So we are back from travels and have done the anti drain block cleaner in kitchen sink as it smelt. And DIY need to commence shortly need to write a list. Pleased with how the house is coming on. Allotment has gone to seed literally and we have got a lot to do.

The drain at the front of the house is now unblocked and I didn’t even have to get my pickaxe out 😄

Just in time too as it is raining!!