DIY disasters. Share your story admit your shame expose your partner.

I think we have all been there. that great idea that went wrong, that simple job that all of a sudden became a living nightmare?

How about a picture of that colour scheme that seemed like a good idea at the time or the drunken idea that took months to rectify.

I have too many to list in one go but to start off I once spent about 12 hours rehanging interior doors only to realise they were all upside down about 5 minutes before the lady of the house came home.

Tried to repair the Soviet Union. Accidentally started the 1989 revolutions. Worst DIY job ever.

a reply to: MotherAnimal

Thats a very short sentance to explain such a monumental mistake, would you care to elaborate on how this went so wrong so quickly and led to this state of affairs?

I once attempted plastering a wall.
After about 7 hours I had done it and sat down with a bear and my 2nd ex wife came in and she was very impressed, we started dinner and I heard a Flllloooop and then another flop the plaster fell from the wall in a big pile.
In the same place I wall papered our living room and I was happy with it until my 2nd ex wife noticed I had put one roll upside down.
She then battered me .

Yeah, I once assembled an entire gas grill without bothering to read the directions. 'Realized at the next-to-last piece that I had to undo almost the entire assembly to add a critical "leftover" part.

And then there was the 12' round, 30" deep water fountain that my ex built in the back yard and never finished. When I booted his sorry behind out (for other reasons) I had to get the fountain in working order so I could show & sell the house. I spent countless hours with buckets of Quickrete trying to fix the leaks which invariably seeped down into the yard and turned it into a swamp. The day of my open house, the entire 1/2 acre grassy back yard squished when you walked on it.

a reply to: boymonkey74

Plastering is a true art and I give deep respect to those that can do it. I actually put plasteres on the same pedastal as wall of death riders and brain sugeons.

Putting something upside down is a man thing and by god we do it well.

I was fibre glassing some 4" square plant pots in sock feet and lost my balance and stepped into the wet epoxy.

My boyfriend then called and asked if I wanted to go for lunch, and as we get so little time together, I agreed and just stuffed my feet into my boots and off I went. Lunch was pungently chemical scented (sorry other café patrons) and when I got home my foot was cemented into my boot. Lost some skin on that one.

I've been married 3 times. It took me a long time to realize that being a drunken, loudmouth, insulting, lazy, control freak is probably not the best way to run a long lasting relationship.

Hitting absolute rock bottom, lonely, sick, homeless and afraid is the perfect prescription for an epiphany.

I'm glad to report that amends were made and we're now all friends and lovers once again.

Look...let me just say, before heading into witness protection..

I have a master bath, a basement, a laundry, a home shop, a set of stairs and a boat...all partially finished. I live in my husband's DIY nightmare.

I would just like him to finish...something...or get off his wallet.


(But I still love him )

a reply to: kosmicjack

And would you see yourself faultless in your endevours?

My good lady is still making baby clothes for children that will be driving soon.

Just because our endevours are more adventerous(and possibly dangerous) does not mean we are any worse for it.

a reply to: nonspecific

It sure is thats why they can charge so much .
I think that one wall cost me 150 quid...in 1999.

Plasterers are generally known as undertakers in the trade as they'll bury anything


But i've had simple jobs soon turn into massive jobs as like most things you never know what you'll find till you get there, aka drill a few holes and end up with half a wall falling off

originally posted by: olaru12
I've been married 3 times. It took me a long time to realize that being married to a drunken, loudmouth, insulting, lazy, control freak is probably not the best way to run a long lasting relationship.

Hitting absolute rock bottom, lonely, sick, homeless and afraid is the perfect prescription for an epiphany.

I'm glad to report that no amends were made and we now all hate each other.


Hey olaru!!
With very few changes, I managed to turn YOUR reply into MINE, lol...and it's all true!

Yeah...sadly it's all true.

jacygirl

a reply to: nonspecific

Hey - you asked, I told. LoL!

I personally don't prefer to DIY. I'm a no talent hack. I make no claims to accomplishment and I'm utterly uninspired.

I''d much rather pay an expert, that way I have at least some expectation of a reasonable outcome and a quality end product.

We've had that old fix-it-up boat for 8 years and it's never seen the lake. I'm sure there are many here who can empathize with my pain (in the ass).

a reply to: nonspecific

Not really a disaster in the 'it didn't get done right' sense, more a disaster in the 'what haven't we fixed' sense.

I bought a Victorian back in 2005 and we are just now nearing completion of a full restoration which encompassed both the interior and exterior of the home.

I have replaced the roof, siding, gutters and architectural details. Repaired the foundation and wrap around porch and painted the entire exterior.

We have renovated the bathrooms.

We stripped the woodwork and stairways of the liberal and injudicious use of white, latex paint and refinished it with a warm amber shellac.

We have pulled out the repulsive shag carpet and installed a period runner on the stairs and in the hallways.

We restored the fireplaces and removed the inappropriate bathroom tiles from the surrounds and replaced them with authentic tiles from a period manufacturer.

I have replaced hollow core, fiberglass doors with reconditioned solid wood, antique doors.

Reglazed the Tiffany glass.

Changed many of the windows.

Repaired the plaster.

Rebuilt one of the chimneys.

Redid the landscaping.

Removed an oil tank (which was undisclosed).

Added insulation and a vapor barrier.

Last thing on the list will be the kitchen sometime this year.



Unless we kill each other first.

I`m going to cast some blame at Ford for this but I work on cars for friends, family and cool people out in the general public that cross my path. I`m so used to working on my own car that I sometimes forget basic fundamentals like a torque reading when doing common jobs like changing brake pads.

Well I was changing the front brake pads, extremely easy to do, and went to tighten down the caliper via the two guide pins. Now every car I have ever changed pads on has the bolts that secure the caliper to the bracket are tight, so what do I do? Grab me my 1/2" wrench with a hardened T-50 or T-55 torx bit and with one motion stripped the thread out of the hole the top guide pin goes into. Hey guess what that is? The one piece knuckle assembly that you have to remove the entire thing, including but not limited to.

Loaded brake caliper
Brake rotor
misc ABS/speed sensor
pop the tie rod end(which could damage the part requiring further work and $$$)
detach the ball joint(same as above)
etc and etc, lots of stuff that needs special tools
Then once everything is nice and reassembled more $$$ for a proper alignment

Heli-coil(a metal coil insert used in fixing such situations) wouldn't work as there is no base to this hole, and I could not "cheat it in".

Down but not out I came up with a solution that works just fine although not OEM, there is almost enough space behind the brake pads so that a bolt head would not cause any issues, though I did grind a few millimeters off to be sure(yeah us American Southerners use metric too rest of world)
and essentially used a series of washers and nuts as the top guide pin and very carefully tightened the lower guide pin to the proper torque. I also put the car through an aggressive test, far more than the owner would ever push the car, to ensure that yes it did work and it did work well. It belongs to a family member and I often like to check up on all the cars I work on for people to see the job lasts. Planning on grabbing one of the replacement knuckle assembly at a auto salvage yard that are awesome for getting hard to find parts and upgrades from, a literal automotive treasure hunt. Needs accessible cold beer during hot weather. The owner is satisfied and happy and after months it shows no sign of issues but I will worry about it every time I do a brake job or another repair. So when it comes time to actually replace some of the listed parts and the struts, it will get replaced with it.

I might not even be using the right name for that part I'm that much of a DIYer, I call it that damn thing and point to it. I know what it does and how it works I ain`t got to know the name. You people that take your rides to a shop shuddering yet thinking about how we fix your sometimes only means of conveyance? I could have used that ass-tastic POS self threading junk NAPA sells to fix it, yeah good luck getting that thing to hold tight after the next brake pad job.

The biggest one came from being 5-6 years(1988ish) old and I built a fire all by myself that consumed the backyard. It went through a metal fence with the leaves into part of the neighbors yard and engulfed a big pile of leaves there as well. I had to run and find my dad to tell him what I did, I was proud it was the biggest thing I ever made.(Understand I am joking, I was the very definition of petrified but I knew I had to say something) No actual damage was done other than a lot of leaves being burned and I didn't get in any trouble, I think it was I told my dad I would tell the neighbor what happened and waiting for him to come home from work was horrible. When he did it was after dark being in the autumn so of course he would have never seen it but I went over and rang the bell. I never met him before, my parents and he never had any interaction, didn't even know his name. I told him what happened and we went into the yard so I could show, got to the area and said in exact censored words "Well GD, good job, I didn't have the time to deal with all the Fing BS anyways!"

Huh, guess I felt like typing tonight.

clearing the land .. and getting the lumber to build my house .. decided to do it the easy way ... ended up with rather large crater that became pond in garden after used bit extra c4 to remove very large tree ..

Also got blown off roof by strong winds couple times replacing roof tiles that blew off in the middle of monsoon ..

a reply to: nonspecific

I will expose my father. I had just moved into a new house, my parents had come to help. The light in the master closet did not work. The closet was L shaped with another door that opened into the hallway. That light did not work either.

My father sweated and toiled for a couple of days. When he was done I had working lights. The switch on the master bedroom opening activated the light, around the corner on the hallway opening, and vice versa. lol