DIY hairdressing
I have not had much luck with the scissors. I mean, cutting hair can't be hard, can it? We've all seen hairdressers - how much intelligence do you need to wear dodgy leather trousers, sport lopsided earrings and drive an MX5? Well, evidently it requires some expertise that doesn't get taught in seven years of higher education.

I had been seeing the current ex for only a couple of months when he asked me to help him shave his head. He produced the razor, set it to a grade three cut, put on the guard (very important) and waved it at me.

"You can't possibly fuck this up," he told me. "Fire ahead!"

Dubiously I began the intimate task of bending him over the bath and working the razor through his thick, dark curls. It felt quite sensual, running my fingers through his hair, watching the locks gather in the bath, exposing that lovely soft suede-like finish.

"Great," he declared, once upright and inspecting it in the mirror. "Now I'll take the guard off and you can do round my ears."

I did. Well, I tried. I am an incredibly clumsy person and he knew this. The first ear went fine. The second, however, I overcut by about a centimetre leaving a huge swathe of white scalp through the dark hair encircling his ear.

What did I do? Well, I did what any new girlfriend would do when she had massively fucked up so early into a new relationship: I burst into tears. He spent a good five minutes hopping up and down in fury and then another five laughing at me for crying.

Somehow he still wanted to see me again, although all our friends were informed of my spazz out in hilarious hyped-up detail. I coloured the white space in for him with an eyeliner pencil. I then threw out my leather trousers, bought some better earrings and sold the MX5.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 11:27, 41 replies)

not me but the singer in my band
he does up houses for a living, and as such often has a number of injuries to tell us about.

most recently he was saying he wouldn't be able to play guitar because he had sawed into his finger with a wood saw.

the main point of this post however is one day when he was lamenting about his sore throat, and that he had coughed up some blood.

"what happened?" we asked him, to which he replied

"I was drilling through some tiles with my mouth open, and a piece of tile flew in and cut the back of my throat"
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 11:25, Reply)

chuck keys
always remember DT at school the teacher would say always make sure the chuck key isnt attached to the drill before u move it make sure its out and on a chain , becuase it will fly off and rip some one a new arsehole in there head, que myself keeping chuck key , key then flying out and tremendous speed across the class room narrowly missing peoples heads before embedding in the cardbord box, i quickly and discreetly wedged it out the box and never used it again
(yousatonmybiscuits liberty city has the worst cab drivers, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 11:21, 4 replies)

My Grandfather
My Grandad was a tightass, actually he still is, but he's in a home now and doesn't get a say in his spending habits anymore.

Back to the story, a number of years ago he was redoing his own roof, despite being almost 70, and, being tight, he wouldnt get any scaffolding, instead he climbed up a series of precarious ladders and got to work. Now, he wasn't stupid so he tied a rope around his waist, tossed the other end over the apex and instructed my grandmother to secure the other end to something solid and immovable, like a fence, or a car. Which she proceeded to do.

At some point during the works he slipped and began to slide, but, since he had the foresight to secure himself he wasn't concerned.

At first.

He continued to slide, and it was at this point that he must have realised that he hadn't told my grandmother to take up the slack on the rope before securing it. So she had just tied the end of this rather long piece of rope. Fortunately for him, the rope eventually stopped him just as he cleared the lip of the roof, leaving his legs dangling freely over the back garden and I can only imagine what expletives coming from his mouth.

I only wish I could have been there to see it.
(Bazongaloid, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 11:15, 6 replies)

Help
This is about my Dad, when he was young.

My grandfather was doing something in the garden that involved carrying heavy things about. For the sake of the anecdote, let's say he was building a rockery. He was struggling with some of his lithic lifting. The boy who would become my Dad watched from a little distance away.

"Some help would be nice," gasped Granddad, straining at one particularly large lapidary lump.
"Right-ho," said Dad. "I'll get Mum."
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 11:08, Reply)

Rewring...
I was having some building work done in my last house, and it involved rewiring the kitchen. The builder called an electrician. The electrician came around and refused to touch anything until he'd disconnected the whole house from the mains.

The reason? The kitchen was in an extension. Whoever'd wired it up had seen fit to run the ring main out through a hole in the dining-room wall, along the outside of the house, and back in through another hole in the kitchen wall. Some of the contacts were fashioned out of bits of wire coathanger.

Apparently that's not safe.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:58, Reply)

What is it with DIy and fingers?
I'm first to confess that when it comes to DIY and garden work my beloved wife is far far superior to me.
So, last year, when we bought a shed, it was me who did things like making tea and tidying up whilst she got on with the drilling, hammering, etc.
The shed was erected.
She decides that because we're going to store our boot sale items in there it would be a good idea to then put an inner lining in.
We started in the back right hand corner. She drilled about five holes from top to bottom on the outside, then got me to hold a piece of 2x4 on the inside for her to drill into through the previous holes.
'I'm going for the top one' she says. So I hold the wood about a third of the way down.
A drill bit appears, lovely clean hole.
'Now the next'.
I know this is about 18 inches down (six foot high shed so: 0, 18, 36, 54, 72. Logical, yes?
I put my left hand on the wood where she's just drilled, and my right hand at about the half way mark.
'Okay'
The drill starts.
Suddenly, instead of this lovely hole appearing between my hands, I have a drill bit screwing into the front of my first knuckle of the middle finger of my right hand.
As you can imagine, this was not what I wanted, and I proceeded to request an explanation as to the reason she'd done the third hole instead of the second.
Imagine the scene thirty seconds later: I'm stood there with blood pouring into a handkerchief, and I'm apologising for yelling and upsetting her.
Must have worked though, we got married a couple of months later.
My finger: little scar, and still got full time pins and needles in it.
(paof2 Nude might not be rude, but rude could be nude..., Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:54, 7 replies)

Caveat Emptor
I have a friend who I will refer to as Jeff, for that is his name.
Jeff is the kind of guy who won't actually ask you to do something for him, he's a bit of a wheedler until you profess any sort of "expertise" in the field he particularly wants help in.
Jeff bought a bungalow from the estate of a recently deceased gentleman, with a view to living in it whilst doing it up. The first thing was to gut the kitchen, I was between contracts at the time so I pitched up to help. Ripping out 70's style wallpaper, tiles, lino and cupboards was just the therapy I needed.
Once we'd cleared the mess (just leaving the sink so we had running water)we decided to have a cuppa. I put the full kettle on the windowsill and, leaning with one hand on the bare plaster, flicked the switch.

Some time later, I woke up in casualty. I'd recieved a 240v belt straight across my chest which had thrown me over the room and I'd cracked my head on the opposite wall.
Once we decided to have another look at the kitchen, we took a real live electrician to test the circuits.

Christ on a fucking candy-pink bike with flashing LEDs!

The walls were live.

240 volt live.

Paul the electrician cut the power and we set to ripping the plaster from the walls.
The previous occupant had had a DIY bent and he'd obviously decided to add wires to lights, cooker, extra sockets and a feed for the garage. He was not as enamoured with spending money. ALL the wiring was made up of redundant wires from old appliances, held together with pvc tape, in one case MASKING tape. There were bare wires wrapped in newspaper and then plastered over, the cooker point was wired with three lengths of flymo cable in parallel NO EARTH, then spurred off to the 9kW shower!!

The whole place had to be rewired.

I wish I'd taken photos (the permanent non-fused feed to the fan heater above the bath was a doozy!). Once the electricians were leaving they told my mate "You were lucky, this place was a fire waiting to happen".

Beware buying any property from a DIY "expert", I was nearly killed making a cuppa, god knows what would have happened if I'd taken a shower!


No apologies for length, girth or stamina.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:54, 4 replies)

A mate of mine
was drilling a hole at head height a few years ago when he got his very long fringe caught in the gubbins. Result was the hair wrapped around the drill bit forcing the drill to smash sideways into his forehead. He still has a scar which is an imprint of the Knurling on the bit. At the time nobody laughed.

Just kidding, eveybody fucking pissed themselves.
( routine has perfected burgers, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:40, Reply)

Bugger, just a day too late....
I 'followed through' whilst on the treadmill at the gym this morning.
(nappy rash, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:32, Reply)

I built these shelves 2 years ago


Despite everyones predictions, they're still solid and show no sign of falling down even though they're overflowing with books.

Not much of a disaster. Sorry.
(teasus likes tea, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:21, 4 replies)

Oooh ooh! DIY disasters.. I have a good one here..
This tale starts a couple of year ago now. Mrs Bluemeat and I had just completed the purchase of our very first house, and that particular evening was the evening where it was ours.

We'd had a quick look around the now empty building, and noticed a few spots of DIY that we needed to do in order to get the place ready to move in. So we popped to B&Q and one of the purchases I made was a shiny cordless drill with screwdriver bits. I figured having the power of electric magic would help me do these things better.

Anyway, having purchased the drill and the paint and stuff in order to fix the bedroom, we bought some fish and chips and proceeded to dine.

The drill came in a nice case, which was held on by a cable tie. Not having access to scissors, I decided to use the foil cutter from a bottle opener. Anyway, the cable tie gave, and the blade slipped and caught my finger.

The cut looked quite deep and was gushing blood, so we thought best if we went to A&E. Being as the missus was only a learner driver at this point, I wasn't happy letting her drive me to A&E, since I hadn't had my licence for long enough to be able to supervise her in the car. So we decided to ask for an Ambulance, which seemed the logical idea.

Being a Friday night, the Ambulance service were more interested in providing a free taxi service to the pissed up louts in town, and said it'd be unlikely we'd get one.

So, a makeshift bandage of J-cloth and gaffer tape was made, and off we went to A&E.

After the requisite six hour wait, A&E had a quick look and cleaned it up and patched it over, before telling me that I would need to go to East Grinstead the next day.

The next day comes, and off we go to East Grinstead, courtesy of a very helpful friend who took us down there. They had a poke around, and said that I'd very nearly severed the extensor tendon(this was described to me as "the one you use to point with"), and would need to come back on the Monday for surgery.

Surgery was done, and now I have a cool scar that I tell people was because I was bitten by a shark ;-).

Two images with and without stitches






I eventually regained full use of the finger back, though the finger can be a little stiff at times.

So whilst I was an idiot, the NHS did a rather stunning job of the repair and the physio support in getting it back to mobility.

Length? 6 weeks in a splint off work, followed by another 4 weeks in a splint overnight and many physio exercises.
( bluemeat has been best of all the animals since, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:20, 4 replies)

Gonad-Squeezing-Foam-Terror!
My esteemed work colleague, N, told me this one.

He used to be in a band, playing guitar, and his bass player, D, was a maintance contractor for Titish Brelicom.

Now, as seems to be the way with the construction industry, they're fond of playing pranks on one another, things like nailing jackets to the wall, gluing down mugs of tea, and so on, all fairly harmless fun, laughs all round.

One day a new boy joins D's crew, and he is, to quote, "A mouthy little runt". They get fed up with him pretty quickly, and decided after a few days that they'd "sort the little bastard out".

At the time they were working with expanding foam to put into ducting, and it was decided that they'd use this to get one over on him.

Cut to the scene of two burly builder-types holding this little chav-monkey down, and filling his kappa jogging bottoms with the magical expandy-foam.

Cue laughs all around, the little guy included, until his smiles turn to a look of terror...

The foam had started to bond to his skin, giving him a winning combination of chemical burns and squeezing, as the now-solid foam embraced his legs and crotch in a crab-like grip.

The hardened foam also stopped him from bending his legs, so a he was carried to a car, and driven to hospital.

The doctors cut him out of his fungal-looking sarcophagus, treated his chemical burns, and he made a full recovery, returning to work and being "one of the lads" from then on.

So... The construction trade, where serious assault is only a hilarious prank away.

As for length, at least he wasn't going commando that day...
( Cawl, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:15, Reply)

Bloody old houses and bloody old ladies
Myself and Mrs Judge bought our first house about 4 years ago, an old Victorian terraced house. In the last four years we've had to -

1. Remove a huge wall next to our stairs (and which also made up the back bedroom wall) because the wall consisted of a ton of bricks with a base of wood. Which was pulling the stairs down on one side because of course a wood base isnt strong enough to hold up a ton of bricks if built incorrectly. Why they didnt put bricks all the way to the floor is beyond me :)

2. Remove and replace the stairs because the dodgy wall had knackered them.

3. Replace all the plaster because it had blown. In every room.

4. The stupid bitch who lived there for 20 years before us had put an extension on the kitchen but this extension prevents access to the drainage on either side of the roof, and the stupid twats who put it in didnt care that those drains might get blocked and overflow. Which causes the roof to leak when it pisses down. The only way to repair this is to replace the entire kitchen roof which im not going to do. Incompetent wankers.

5. Said stupid old bitch had had damp proof done 10 years before but lost the paperwork so we knocked a grand off the price to cover the work which she complained about, and it was her fault

Tip to peeps buying old houses - check everything, plaster, woodwork, dampproofing, flooring, wiring, and I mean everything. It will save you grief in the long run.
(thejudge2007, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:12, 2 replies)

DIY Candles
Last Christmas, one of my housemates was given a Lean, Mean, Fat Reducing Grilling Machine*. Now, for the unfamiliar, this is basically a Breville Sandwich Toaster with a bit of a slope on it. You put a plastic tray** under the end of it, and as your meat cooks (*snigger*), the fat drips down into the plastic tray. Simple but effective.

Just one question: what the f**k do you do with a tray of sausage fat? Said housemate probably needs a good salad more than he needs a piece of white sliced deep fried in the sausage juices, so he's better off throwing it away. But of course, you can't tip the stuff down the sink.

So he collected it in a jar. For a few weeks on end. We now had, in our kitchen, a jar containing several weeks' worth of fat, oil, grease and foetid meat juices.

I had a nice sturdy piece of string. I had an idea.

Yes, I dangled this piece of string into the jar and let it marinade in the grease for a few days. Then I took a lighter to the end and - bugger me - I had a working candle.

Of my four housemates, two of them think this makes me disgusting, one of them thinks it's a good idea, if eccentric, and the other hasn't commented. Who do you side with?

Apologies for length, but at least it's lean and low-fat...

*_{Cue "So good I put my face on it" jokes...
**Two of which are generously provided by the manufacturers}
(LongJohnBaldry, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:10, 14 replies)

Unseless Workshy Cnut of a Builder
More fool me, I gave up trying to convert my loft into a spare bedroom once I realised the amount of work involved. Instead, I paid for too much money to some bloke who said he was a builder, but subsequently turned out to be some chancing DIY-er who thought he could make a bit of money out of some gullible mug.

Apart from the fact that he demolished two bedroom walls by mistake, put the stairs in the wrong place and spent two days plastering a wall that led to a river of water flowing out of my front door, he was a lovely, lovely, totally plausible conman.

"What are you doing today?" I asked, leaving for work one morning.

"Laying flooring" he replied, pleased with the fact that we were finally getting somewhere.

I arrived home to find him jammed headfirst, halfway through one of the bedroom ceilings.

"See what you made me do?" he shrieked at me, "I thought you were a burglar!"

I know what you're going to ask: "How did you get him out?"

I didn't. He's still there.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:02, 2 replies)

Appliance of science
This is not really a tools-and-wood kind of story. It does, however, involve people trying DIY cooking.

At university my friends and I decided to bake a birthday cake for our friend V. Our ranks included an engineer, a mathematician and me, an organic chemist. There was an oven in V's kitchen, so the plan was to sneak into her house, ninja bake, then present to her a lovely warm birthday cake.

None of us were particularly handy in the kitchen, indeed had never baked a cake before, but were confident that we could do it ourselves using our combined degrees and the power of SCIENCE. Our apparatus included a plate, a fork and a metal mixing bowl.

We were dimly aware that flour is ordinarily involved in cake, but there our certainties ended. We didn't know if sugar was involved, we thought maybe eggs should make an appearance and we flirted with the idea of using butter. All this discussion turned out to be academic, however, as we only had a bag of flour and some bananas.

"Well, sugar is just sucrose, and bananas have a lot of fructose in them. So we can use bananas in lieu of sugar. Agreed?"

Aye.

"Butter is just fat! We don't want V to get fat do we? So let's skip that. Besides, bananas must have a little fat in them. Let's just chuck in an extra banana in lieu of butter. Agreed?"

Aye.

"Eggs. Pshaw. What's an egg? It's just a bunch of protein with some cholesterol in the middle. Do bananas have protein? Yeah, they must do, sportsmen love bananas. Besides, bananas don't have cholesterol in them, so they're probably better than eggs anyway. So no eggs- just another banana. Agreed?"

Aye.

We happily set about mashing the bananas into the flour, all the while smugly congratulating ourselves on the altruistic application of our degrees. We transferred the sorry mass in the mixing bowl into the oven, and somehow decided that a low temperature would probably be best.

We were taking no chances. Raw eggs can kill, and there were some banana eggs in there, so, erring on the side of caution, we let the banana cake bake for two hours. What emerged was a gloopy, horrific mass. To try and disguise its true, awful nature, we tried spraying some canned cream onto it, but sadly the cream dispenser was almost empty, and a brief hiss of gas sprayed a desultory couple of flecks onto the surface of the beast.

The DIY cake did not look the masterpiece we imagined it would be. In fact, V told us that the cake was one of the worst things that had ever happened to her, but that she was grateful for our demonstrating so clearly the awesome power of the DIY impulse in men.
(I grew it myself, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 10:01, 4 replies)

duct tape - its like the force
it has a light side, a dark side and it binds the universe together

/gets coat
( Reme Philips laid an epic dump on, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 9:53, Reply)

superglue wasnt invented in 'nam,
I thought so too for a while but Dog soldiers lied to me, if you wikipedia it you'll find it was invented for simple glueing tasks
(Chubster Will kill your children and burn your wife on, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 9:52, 1 reply)

I fix things as a job and for a hobby
I work as an IT tech and in my spare time I attempt to repair cars. Up until recently I owned a bright red mk2 Golf GTi that I decided to attempt a rolling restore on. I devoted a year of my life and around two thousand pounds replacing worn mechanical components. In the year i had it, the Golf got a new gearbox, two new clutches, a new radiator fan (the old one was so rusted in that I needed a lump hammer to persuade the screws free) as well as various bodywork ancillaries like wheel arch trim, mirrors etc. I had money put by to grind out and replace sections of rusted bodywork as well as a full bare metal respray.

It survived all of this amateur restoration and was starting to become a reliable, nice example. It was the radio aerial that eventually killed the car.

When I first got the car, the old aerial was bent and twisted. Somebody had obviously tried to replace it in the past as the old wire was cut. My first mistake was to pull the head unit end out through the dashboard. You'd usually tape the new wire to that end and use it to pull the new cable through the dashboard.

I fitted the new aerial but for the life of me I couldn't get the new cable through. fed up of being without radio, I was determined not to give up. So the dash had to come out. First the steering wheel came off, then the central column got removed, then all of the screws holding in the dashboard. After that the clocks had to go. By now I was already swamped in screws and bits of interior. Sweating and heaving, the dashboard slowly lifted off from its home of seventeen years.

It got stuck on the indicator and headlight stalks.

It all looked kind of delicate around there so in an effort to avoid having to remove them I tried to find the cable with the access I had, maybe two or three inches. Nope. The insulation behind the dash was in the way. Even tearing some of it off (to be stuck back down later) didn't give me enough room to get my hand and arm behind the dashboard.

The stalks had to come off.

The screws were tiny and fiddly and I was in unknown territory. However, I had come so far and was apparently just a few more minutes away from my goal that I couldn't give in. Not when I was so close. The last screw came out. I just had to remove the plastic cover on the base of the steering wheel column.

And then the column dropped its guts all over the carpet. Screws, plastic, the little clicky switch that governs the indicators, everything. And I had no idea how to put it all back. I couldn't afford to pay a garage to fix it for me and so the car that I had poured so much time and money into ended up getting slowly sold for parts, and then scrapped.

What a miserable end to a year-long project. So embarrassed was I about my idiocy that people were told in the immediate aftermath that the engine had blown up.

Poor Golf :(
( Kroney, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 9:51, 3 replies)

How to get a new bathroom
This could be quite a long one...

I took possession of my house in the middle of May last year. I knew when I bought it that it was a project house and that it'd be a couple of months before I could even move in, but that didn't bother me. (When it's finished, hopefully in a couple of years, it'll be utterly fantastic. It has a cellar. Envy me.)

Anyhoo... One of my first priorities was the bathroom. The old one was perfectly serviceable, but it was decorated with a really nasty tongue-and-groove wood panelling, and the tiles on the splashbacks were pink floral things. Of more immediate concern, though, was the fact that the panelling on the wall along the side of the bath was distinctly convex.

My Dad is a DIY sort of person: he's pretty good at it, too. Being a teacher, and with the May half term being the week after I got my keys, he volunteered to come and have a look at the place. Granted that I was going to get a pro in to replaster the bathroom, he would be able at least to take off some of the panelling so that we knew the state of the mysteriously bendy wall underneath. And removing the panelling would mean less work for the builder, therefore less cost for me.

I decided to swing by the house on my way home from the office to see what Dad had found. What I found was a wet, dirty and apologetic couple of parents at the top of the stairs. "We think we owe you a new carpet," Mum said, a little sheepishly. She told me what had happened.

Sensibly, before removing any of the panelling, Dad had put a board across the bath to keep it rubble free. He had removed a small piece of the wall-covering, but then decided that he needed to nip out to B&Q for something.

It would appear that the tongue-and-groove was held onto the wall (and ceiling - did I mention that even the ceiling was wood panelled? No? It was.) by nothing more than vertigo and a following wind. Removing one small piece had disturbed its never-stable equilibrium, and, while Dad was out, the convex part of the wall decided to make a bid for freedom, taking much of the rest of the wall and ceiling with it. The bathtaps were - and are - vertically mounted; one was turned on by a piece of falling detritus.

You'll remember that there was a board over the bath. The water from the tap didn't, therefore, go down the plughole. It cascaded over the side of the bath onto the floor, where it mixed with the dust and rubble.

Half an hour later, Dad got back.

On the upside, the result was that the bathroom went from being something that I really wanted to replace and refit to something that I really needed to replace and refit. I now have a lovely bathroom.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 9:40, 15 replies)

I'm not a fan of DIY
Electrics, car repairs and gardening are no problem, but anything involving water or wood, and a plumber or joiner does the job.

Possibly I have learned this because my grandad used to try to do everything himself, and ended up making an arse of it. He was also reluctant to spend money (even though he had it), if he could bodge something for free.

He was a great advocate of the six inch nail. My gran once asked him to put up some hooks in the kitchen so she could hang her towels on them. Shortly afterwards, the end of the kitchen table was sporting a number of large nails...

They owned a property comprising three flats - they stayed in the upper level and rented out the two on the ground floor. One night, the bloke in one of the downstairs flats came in from the pub and put on a pan of chips to fry...... the fire brigade saved the day, but the flat was gutted.

The electrics were all replaced after the fire. My grandad kept the old cable, charred insulation and everything, and used it to wire up some lights in his shed. Amazingly it worked, despite the lack of cable insulation in parts, and no one was killed.

He also used to collect doors. Every time someone he knew was fitting a new door, he'd go and collect the old one (often after phoning me to come and help with it). The idea was that my gran wanted a door on their close, but he was too tight fisted to buy one and get a joiner to fit it.

He died aged 92 without ever completing this job, with a shed containing 8 doors of varying size, none of which matched the close entrance.

We had a great bonfire though.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 9:29, 4 replies)

my tool kit is pink
even the spirit in the spirit level is pink.

do i need to say any more?

there are 80 year old nuns who get more action than it does!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 9:14, 3 replies)

Wooden slats of your sofa broken.....
Then fix them with duct tape.



And put some books under your sofa to keep the slats lifted. Yay!
( girlinthehole, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 9:12, 2 replies)

I love doing DIY,
but there is so much that prevents me from doing it these days.
When I pop down to B&Q, Mrs T is under the impression that the pack of timber I have just bought can be fitted immediately. She doesn't understand why I have to saw, drill, plane, sand the piece of wood.
Whenever, I'm cutting something, she comes and looks at what i'm doing and shakes her head and walks off mumbling that the bits I'm sawing off is throwing money away.
I firmly believe that she thinks a piece of timber bought from B&Q is the same as a self assembly wardrobe pack bought from MFI.

I also have the added difficulty in that I start in the office early, and dont get home until around 8pm. and having a baby in the house, I'm not allowed to do anything that would make noise, so this restricts me to working only at weekends, except, I have to take her to Sainsbury's first thing on Saturday morning, and after that I have to take my little one to the play centre. After which, the little one has the midday sleep, and I cant make any noise. So then I can start work at around 2:30pm when she wakes, finally. And I can work for approx 4 hours until she goes to sleep again. On Sunday I end up taking Mrs T to church, and the rest of the day is a repeat of Saturday. So in the weekend I dont get much done at all. then she complains I do fuck all.

Apologies for length, its a bit of 4by2, and its 12ft long. I can just get it in my car.
( turb0t, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 8:49, 4 replies)

Footy
I was trying to watch a footy match but the signal was crap, so i clambered onto the roof to sort out the aerial, but I fell and died.

*grabs coat and runs.
(DanielH I'm not paying for an Icon from b3ta- screw that., Fri 4 Apr 2008, 8:49, 2 replies)

I say...
There seem to be an awful lot of amputation stories under this question. My grandad lost two fingers but not exactly in DIY... he worked in a factory and put his hand on a conveyor belt to see if it was still warm just as his mate switched the machine on for some kind of test. His hand happened to be under a large blade...
(Lieutenant Colonel Oblivious brought to you by intravenous sugar, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 8:47, Reply)

Ironman
As many of this week's posts confirm, sometimes our fathers are frightening reminders of the flawed DNA we all possess. I am amazed I made it through childhood with the stunts my parents pulled.

My dad had a new pair of trousers. They were a little creased. Now, the deal is that my mum does the ironing in their marriage - it's a deal they forged at the altar and I had previously dismissed it as a misogynistic anachronism of the early 1970s. Not so.

Since my mum was at work and my dad required instant trouser decreasing, he procured the iron, turned it all the way up to 11, and began to work the offending creases from the trousers.

Unfortunately, in attempting to save time and effort, he neglected to take off the trousers first. The ruined clothes, the pain and the smell of singeing hair and flesh meant he couldn't actually hide what he had done.

You know those humorous emails that contain what seem to be ridiculous user instructions? The ones that say things like "do not attempt to iron clothes while wearing them"? I used to wonder what kind of numpty needed such advice. Well, it seems they were written entirely for the edification of my father.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 8:43, 2 replies)

About 8 years ago
I got home from college to a quiet house, to find my dad in the kitchen, sitting on the worktop, ironing the wallpaper (a charming fake tile effect, if you must know).

Fearing some kind of early onset alzheimer's or mad cow disease I asked him what he was doing.

'I saw someone on the telly using a steamer to get off the wallpaper - and then I thought! This is a steam iron!' he said, rather too proudly.

'Dad', I said, knowing the time had come. The time when I, a mere 17 year old at the time, would have to parent my parent. The time when I realised, he didn't have *all* the answers. The sad but inevitable circle of life.

'Dad.'

'It's waterproof wallpaper'.
(Northern Lovely, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 8:40, 1 reply)