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.

Ah that's very cool @Wilkolampshade. I did a upholstery course through the council a few years ago, turned out it was more of a workshop space with instructor - with people working on armchairs etc. I'm still at stretching and stapling to rectangular surfaces level 😅

Speaking of which, today I added some castor wheels to a wooden wine box, it'll be an ottoman of 2 stacked wine boxes + upholstery for an awkward corner in the hallway. Bought hinges a few days ago, I have lots of fabric to use up, just need to buy a second box, some foam and wadding.

Also did a few sewing repairs I'd been putting off. My goose t shirt has fresh feet.

Ooh, I’d love to do an upholstery course!

https://amusf.org/training/approved-training-centre-directory/
@Agapornis@TeamToeBeans these are the people who offer my course. Recommend highly. Xx

Finished painting my front room which has the sofas and the TV. Going to Italy and Sicily for 10 days, departing Tuesday next week. Tidy up time required this evening.

Feeling exhausted but exhilarated.

I cut a few new wooden slats for a garden bench I'm very slowly refurbishing. It'd been 'resting' in my neighbour's front garden for years.

I used a beautiful, dense piece of live edge wood I found next to communal flat bins years ago, it was too long and narrow to be useful for anything else. I love my jigsaw, such easy and neat cuts. Am hoping to do the sanding and oiling on Monday. Might have a useable bench by Tuesday!

Your bench sounds like it will be beautiful @Agapornis and brilliant that you are repurposing a piece of live edge timber for it!

I was supposed to start painting in the dining hall today but instead finished a relaxed roman blind for the cloakroom. Not sure why really as the room is nowhere near ready 🙄

Yesterday I began moving several humongous plant pots around the garden as DH needed the space to brick up a disused doorway. In the end some were way too heavy for me to do alone, but now they're moved the garden looks much better!

Hopefully I'll be painting tomorrow.

The bench is pretty much done! Before and after, the blue matches my shed. The photo looks a bit odd against the planter, but it's 3 slats for the back, 5 for the seat. I quite enjoyed oiling it, less messy than paint, though a pain to get off the brush. I did not enjoy trying to bend back the 6 useable original slats with hot water and steam, one just wouldn't budge despite my best efforts.

Amusingly the rod at the bottom (tension rod?) is 10cm too short. No wonder the bench was dumped! I'm going to have to extend it with a coupling nut and another bolt, pretty annoying to fall at the last hurdle.

Oh and ignore the ugly wire panel - it's to keep my own cat out 🙄 if anyone has a DIY for making a wilful cat poo in a designated area I'd love to hear it! He acts as if he doesn't have a litter tray and the rest of the garden to shit in.

Wow! That looks amazing @Agapornis! Love the blue too 🩵

I still haven't started painting in the hall - there's lots of filling to do first...plus mist coating on some bare plaster. Procrastinating, moi?!

Instead I've made a tablecloth using a lovely remnant trimmed with linen from an old duvet cover, cut some seat covers for the dining chairs (these don't need sewing 😉) and begun papier mache-ing a glass vase which I'm hoping to give a new lease of life. When it's done I plan to paint it so it resembles splatterware.

I've been working on an ottoman on wheels to put in an awkward corner at the bottom of the stairs. Today I battled with the placement of a folding friction lid stay (it goes on the side to keep the lid open at 90 degrees). Fml. I now have a lot of holes to fill. At least the hinges were fairly easy.

On the upside - I discovered an old fashioned ironmongers 20 minutes away that has thousands of little boxes and sells bolts, screws etc individually 🏆 - so my previously mentioned bench related single bolt and coupling nut problem is resolved. Didn't know such shops still existed and I'm very pleased. The guy running it is about 20 years away from retirement, so fingers crossed it'll keep me going through much diy! No more getting overpriced crap from B&Q or bulk quantities from eBay.

Downstairs bathroom painted just need to do some touchups and clean and polish it and shelves to go in. Ceiling is Farrow and Ball Oxford Stone and Walls are Farrow and Ball Dark Wine

DH is started to put back toilet roll and soap holders etc

I have to say I absolutely love love love it. It isn’t lilac, it is isn’t blue and it isn’t mauve both DH and I say it is totally the right choice. Love it. Just need to finish it off!

At the caravan this weekend, so have been out and pressure washed the bird droppings, algae and cobwebs. In the process of that I broke the front door hook so now we can't open the door on a windy day until that's fixed.

Hoping I can find a replacement nearby tomorrow and a rivet gun.

Our site are responsible for maintenance but they've told us as it's such an old van now they don't really offer replacement parts so any repairs we want doing need to be sourced and done ourselves, or we have to buy a new caravan. Seems like madness to me, but I am hopping down a rabbit hole to learn some new skills very quickly on youtube university.

Having removed the last of the wallpaper from the landing and mist coated the staircase wall, I finally started painting last weekend. DH has now taken over as there's no way I'm going up one of those staircase ladders to reach the top of the stairwell, the ceiling or the window! I'm rapidly going off the idea of painting my mural up there 🙄

To compensate, I swapped some of the old, mismatched handles/knobs on our preloved kitchen wall cabinets for lovely unlaquered brass ones.

Planning on painting my downstairs loo this week, so today I’ve taken everything out of it and given it a clean including wiping the walls. Never painted before but we can’t afford a decorator so doing it myself. Tomorrow I plan to take the towel rail and toilet roll holder off the wall and do some filling and sanding.

I cleaned up DH's DIY attempts.

I have moved the curtain track he removed from the living room window. And cleaned up the sink, other sink, plug hole and DH's hands after he tried to "fix" a hole in the sink. He said he didn't realise he should have worn rubber gloves because the sink repair putty box didn't say it was sticky.

🙄🙄🙄

Sanded, filled holes, and sanded DSs room again.

Want to cry about the state these walls were left in by the last tenants and also is it just like impossible for builders to build walls in a straight line these days, every corner of the room is a different angle.

Cry for me, or pray for me, or both.

Has anybody used that roll on plaster before? Is it easy to use and what is it like for priming after it's dried?

Roll skimmed some of the walls in a patch method. I think most of the walls will be fine with a fresh primer and paint.

Done more sanding.

More sanding tomorrow. Will the sanding never end

What sander do you use @Jimmyneutronsforehead

My house is early Edwardian and no wall is straight.

I have used Toupret Smoothing and although it works, it needs a lot of drying time between re application.

We just got a cheap orbital sander and a telescopic manual sander off Amazon.

That knauf roll on plaster was hard to get to grips with but easy once I'd got the knack of it and I think some walls at least look a bit straighter.

@Jimmyneutronsforehead yikes those walls look a mess!

@EmotionalSupportVest you have my sympathy, I also live with a man who has little diy common sense (housemate not husband, phew).

Very little DIY achieved here recently, I put up a few posters in hangers. You know when you step back and suddenly it doesn't look great after all? Argh. Might have to rehang.

I did buy a few things for future projects - an electric staple gun (Vinted), picture shelves (jumble trail), and maybe, finally, the right colour paint for my bedroom (paint reuse shop). I've lived with tester patches for the last five years.
Nearly bought a mitre saw for £20, then realised I don't have a work bench to put it on, and the existing circular saw can already cut mitres.

I think the sanding era may be coming to a close. I've got one small patch to do around the window, then vacuum all the dust, wash down the walls, doorframes and skirting boards and then it will be mist coat time and primer time.

I need a blue paint, somewhere between primary colour blue and royal blue. The paint on the dulux website seems mismatched with the pantone sample cards they provide in stores so I thought I was going for one thing, but I have come out empty handed and confused.

DS wants a spaceship control panel in his space themed bedroom, so I've got to get my creative hat on and work out how I can turn our cheap ikea furniture into a futuristic space ship command deck.

Can confirm that paint on a screen often looks nothing like in real life (unless you have a specially calibrated fancy screen). If there's a B&Q near you they should have a large amount of small Valspar colour chips to take home. Then get your choice colour matched at a Dulux Decorator Centre, or anywhere else that does paint mixing near you - I hear Valspar paint can be of mixed quality, haven't used it myself though. Or treat yourself to a RAL colour fan deck for consistency everywhere, RAL is the European paint colour standard.

I'd get him to design that command deck himself...

Ah, we used Valspar on our caravan kitchen cupboards after we peeled the already peeling heat sealed coatings off of them.

The chap in B&Q said there are different mixes and he would only ever recommend the all in one mix, which was obviously the most expensive at £45 a tub, and at the time I thought he was perhaps just trying to do a cheeky upsell but 1 year later they do still look as good as new and true to their swatch card compared to my aunt who did her kitchen cupboards before us and gave us the idea, and all around her doorknob handles has chipped and flaked away as she just got the standard mix.

We've got handles not knobs on ours so I don't know if it's just the knobs that have caused the wear and tear and it was inevitable, but we've had to scrub ours within an inch of it's life between people using our caravan and it's still perfect. Very watery paint going on though but really thick when it dries.

Sanding done. Walls washed. Mist coat on. Doesn't look like I've done very much though but my back definitely feels like I've done a lot.

Tomorrow I'll be putting primer on the walls and if that dries down fast hopefully the first coat of emulsion on all walls and ceiling.

I've primed and got a few coats of emulsion on today.

I don't know if the Leyland emulsion is just rubbish or if magnolia really is the devil to white emulsion but it feels like it bleeds through like they're the 60 year old walls of a 20 a day smoker.