Weekends used to be all about bacon baps, reading magazines, housework, seeing friends and family and painting my nails. Currently, they’re a mix of trips to the dump, visits to B&Q and hours of stripping and sanding, priming and painting. I ain’t complaining, because at the end of it we’ll have a home for the first time that truly feels like ours and the satisfaction of looking at a freshly painted wall and patting ourselves on the back and soon enough they’ll be all the time in the world to lounge around in the bath and paint my toenails. Oh and light a candle. It’s been yonks since my Figuier came out to play.
Having never even picked up a paintbrush before, I’ve learnt a lot during this process from finding out that drills are really fun, Tilers are very busy people and the toughest trade to schedule in and that each afternoon at about 3pm I have a little tantrum and say I’m just ‘tooooo tired to carry on‘, before having an inspiration-scroll though Pinterest and getting my arse back into gear. It’s also impossible to fuel yourself in a healthy way whilst carrying out DIY. A mixture of Pringles and Jaffa Cakes are what I’d suggest. Here are a few other things I’ve learnt from doing a fair amount of DIY:
Heavy duty gloves will become your new best friend even if they’re too big for you and the fingertips flop around.
Wallpaper stripping is the devil especially if the previous tenants had wallpapered over wallpaper multiple times.
Wallpaper stripping is even more of a devil if the previous tenants have painted over layers of wallpaper with steam-proof kitchen paint and after spending three days stripping just one wall you may cry tears of happiness when you get to the end.
Never leave an extension cable all coiled up inside its plastic home when in use or it will melt and become one gigantic wire and fire hazard.
Your home may never be dust-free again and you will start to have really opinionated views on the Dyson VS. Henry Hoover debate.
Fellow DIY-ers you hear me? Please comfort me with your stories of your now dust-free homes and your satisfying pats on the back and the fact that you paint your nails and the polish actually stays on past Friday evening. The dream. Right, that’s it for now. I’m off to fire-up that steamer again. Steam-proof paint – I won’t be defeated.
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