Lattice
My maternal grandfather was a builder and farmer, my paternal grandfather was a fitter and blacksmith. The practical bit seems to have skipped a generation in the male line though. Give Dad a paintbrush or roller and he'll do a wonderful job but anything else, not really a good idea. Got no idea of leverage, torque, pressure and that sort of thing. Example - sanding disk. Rubber backing disk, actual abrasive disk, biggish sheet metal washer, big screw holds it together, what's to go wrong? Well he put a new abrasive disk in and the thing disintegrated. Why? No sheet metal washer. "I didn't think it was necessary" says Dad. Er, Dad, the makers would not have put it there if it wasn't needed.

My own disasters have been pretty minor. I've got an inflated idea of my limitations but I've changed engine head gaskets, ground in exhaust valves and put new rings on a mower piston, honed brake cylinders and engines still ran and brakes still worked. Ask me to drill a hole in a particular spot and it might be a millimetre or two off though.

Bought a house in tropical Queensland, lovely old place, built about 1925, all good timber and a veranda out the front, partially enclosed by timber lattice, made from strips about two fingers wide. Someone had painted it nicely outside but inside it was peeling and blistered. Wore out an old B & D drill with sanding disk on it, then set about repainting. A b@stard of a job but the finished lattice would look great.

Yours truly has a bright idea. I'll be painting against the light and with white gloss over white undercoat and I won't be able to see where I've been. A hint of blue pigment in the undercoat will make the top coat appear whiter and I won't miss anything.

Of course I used too much pigment. The finished topcoat was patchy but palest blue and had to be done again. Big lattice panels take a long time to paint. You really don't want to paint them three times when you can do it twice.

The place had gorgeous skirting boards with ogive tops and matching architraves. Fretwork ventilators above the genuine 3-panel doors, a picture rail and really high ceilings. I scoured local lighting shops for fittings that were close to 1920-ish and got a vintage looking ceiling fan. Took the brass window latches off the 8-pane windows, cleaned off years of tarnish and paint splash, polished, lacquered and put them back on freshly painted windows. Lovely.

A few years later moved away, then when passing through called in on old neighbors. While I was there the third set of owners after me called in. So I used to own the place? Well, yes. Oh, we have been doing some work, come in for a look.

They'd ripped out out the lovely old skirting boards, the architraves and the picture rails and sheeted over the timber wall boards with featureless plasterboard. The 8-pane hinged windows that caught every stray breeze were gone, replaced by sliding aluminium framed panes that caught nothing. The interior looked like it had been built the week before.

That's a DIY disaster.
(Redemption blamed it on the Bossa Nova since, Sun 6 Apr 2008, 12:19, 3 replies)

Can't believe someone did that to a Queenslander
they're truly great vernacular buildings. Wonderful sitting in one and having the breeze blow through...

Don't get me started on the ones who jack them up to fit another storey underneath, completely missing the point of the whole way the building's supposed to work. If they need more space, they should move and leave the buildings to those who will appreciate them...
(dxg, Sun 6 Apr 2008, 12:38, closed)

Jacking up
Plead guilty to jacking it up. It was on high blocks anyway, but not quite high enough. Could park the car underneath and the laundry was down under too. But you had to duck your head going from front to back. Six inches would make all the difference. Unfortunately the end result was more like ten and the place did look a bit high, so I regretted it. The timber stumps did need replacing though as a few had sunk.
(Redemption blamed it on the Bossa Nova since, Sun 6 Apr 2008, 12:55, closed)

That is a real disaster!
I live in an old queenslander...that must have broken your heart. Were the new owners Kath and Kim perchance? Turning that old house into something "real noice".
( Ken Oath, Sun 6 Apr 2008, 13:55, closed)