Whats your DIY disaster? (Full Version)

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MariaB -> Whats your DIY disaster? (9/23/2014 1:47:12 PM)

I was recently painting one of our bedroom walls a deep crimson red. After the second coat I stood back to admire my work. I smiled, satisfied I hadn't got a drip of paint on my hands or the wooden floor. I stepped back to have a better look; paintbrush in one hand, tin in the other. I didn't see the dog behind me and as I tripped and stumbled over him the tin flipped upside down and covered me, the floor, the bed and the bedside cabinet and the dog with red paint. The dog panicked and ran with now red painted paws down the oak staircase, into the living room where he shook himself before jumping onto the sofa. I slipped and slid through the paint into the bathroom where I proceeded to get red paint on the white towels and all over the bathroom floor. When my husband came home, all he could say was, "It looks like a bloody slaughter house ffs."

My dog has had several baths since the paint incident. He's still got this pink hue to his coat which has kind of grown on me!

Have you or your partner ever had a DIY disaster? I've had a few but I think this has to be my worst.




PeonForHer -> RE: Whats your DIY disaster? (9/23/2014 1:57:13 PM)

Ah, a good few. Once, I overturned a full five litre tin of gloss white on a hall carpet. I quickly realised that I'd never, ever be able to clean it all up. In the end, I covered it with a new piece of carpet. The hallway stank of oil paint for some six months after that.

I've kept my first attempts at plumbing. Joints that leaked, no matter how many times I tried to fix them. Months of leaks and flooded floors. I have a picture somewhere on my hard disk of the giant toadstool that grew next to one of my leaking joints. A 'fruitin' body', the local Bristol plumber called it.



PeonForHer -> RE: Whats your DIY disaster? (9/23/2014 2:29:13 PM)

... Oh, forgot to mention: greatest DIY disaster, measured monetarily:

A while ago I turned a cellar into a basement room. This involved enlarging a 1 ft by 1 ft hole in the front exterior wall of the house to 4 ft by 2 ft. I cut into the wall with an angle grinder but, after I'd worn out three cutting disks, decided to belt it repeatedly with a pickaxe instead. I don't know why - maybe I was tired, or just brainless from the noise - but I kept belting this section of bricks and seeing them move - but not breaking off. I couldn't understand it. How can a section of wall move, but not break? So I went outside to take a look. Some six square yards of the front of the house was billowinged out as a result of the blows from my pickaxe. If that had given way the whole of the front of the house could have come down. It could have brought down the walls of the houses either side, too. (We're talking terraced houses.) About a quarter of a million pounds of damage, perhaps even more.

On realising what was happening, within half an hour, I'd bashed the bricks back into place from the outside, applied three bags of mortar and put in a steel lintel. That was possibly the quickest DIY work I've ever done. I could have literally trashed three houses that day. For a brief while it actually looked like the rational option for me might be to flit the country.



Gauge -> RE: Whats your DIY disaster? (9/23/2014 3:52:58 PM)

My neighbor long ago had told me that his drains were running slow in his house. He wanted to try to get them open himself... I told him to call a plumber. He insisted he wanted to do it himself... and since I was in the heating and air conditioning service trade, did I know how to do that. I told him yes, I had done something similar with a plumber friend for my Dad's house. I told him to plug every drain with rags, including the overflow in the sinks and bathtub, and the washing machine drain line. I also told him to go up on his roof and plug every vent on the roof of the house. I then told him to take his garden hose, and open one drain, put the hose in there and seal it in there with rags, then turn on the hose and wait for about 30 minutes to an hour, checking all the drains to make sure no water was coming up. He thanked me and told me he was going to tackle it on the weekend.

I came home Saturday afternoon and my neighbor flagged me down and told me he did what I told him, but that his drains were still slow, so he was doing it more. I went over to his house and we went around back and I noticed that there wasn't an extension ladder up to the roof. I asked him if he had gone on the roof to plug the plumbing vents up there. He told me that he had forgotten about that. I told him that he was about to wish he didn't forget that. He got a ladder and went up to the roof, and his entire roof was covered in raw sewage. Needless to say, I laughed and told him that I emphasized the fact that he HAD to plug every drain and roof vent or it wouldn't work. He was not happy...



deathtothepixies -> RE: Whats your DIY disaster? (9/23/2014 4:03:41 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

I'd bashed the bricks back into place from the outside, applied three bags of mortar and put in a steel lintel.


Where did you put the lintel peon? Given that all the bricks were back in place and much mortar had been applied doesn't seem to me to be any room for a lintel



ExiledTyrant -> RE: Whats your DIY disaster? (9/23/2014 4:21:29 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: deathtothepixies


quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

I'd bashed the bricks back into place from the outside, applied three bags of mortar and put in a steel lintel.


Where did you put the lintel peon? Given that all the bricks were back in place and much mortar had been applied doesn't seem to me to be any room for a lintel


Clearly someone did not get their letter from Hogwarts and they are pissed!



shiftyw -> RE: Whats your DIY disaster? (9/23/2014 5:10:30 PM)

Old roommate and I were newly single 20 something's with an ikea habit.

We bought a drop leaf ikea bar. We lived in philly and had to carry that heavy ass bar from ikea home.
Feeling fiercely independent, very 'you go girl! Who needs a man?!' Really fueled what happened next.

Neither of us owned a screw gun or stud finder. Three hours later, easily a dozen holes in our very thin and shitty south philly house walls (and security deposit), and the bar took easily half a dozen falls from the wall.

We were defeated. Roommate decided the best place to keep the booze was the kitchen table. My ex came over and put the dumbass bar up while we drank heavily.



MariaB -> RE: Whats your DIY disaster? (9/24/2014 12:42:15 AM)

[:D][:D] Nearly knocking a 3 houses down has to be the biggest blunder so far but raw sewage on the roof...eek!

I can totally relate to your bar episode shifty [:D] I've had a few like that.

My ex was the nightmare DIY man. I'd come home from work to discover new doorways (without lintels) knocked out. He once wallpapered our dining room with a large pattern paper and to save time had measured the first section and then cut all the other sections the same size. Of course the pattern didn't meet but he'd gone ahead anyway.

His worst disaster was buying one of those metal bins with a chimney lid. He loaded it with fresh grass which of course wouldn't ignite and so doused it in petrol before putting a lit match to the base. The thing went 'BOOM' and took off like a rocket. My ex shocked by the blast started legging it down the garden and I watched through the kitchen window as the lid, now a good 10ft in the air was spinning after him until 'DONK', it hit him right on the back of the head, knocking him over. I ran outside to help him but as I looked at his dazed face with missing hairline and eyebrows, I couldn't help but shed a few hysterical tears (of laughter). It was like something out of a cartoon movie.



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