My first husband and I
were useless at DIY.
He was very much into the 1950's era - played slap double bass in a rockabilly band and loved the kitchen equipment of the 50's. So, when we moved to the US, we were able to buy a refrigerator from that era. It was ace, it was red and cool looking, but totally ate into our power bill.
So we decided to turn it into an entertainment center.
One night, after a few drinks, we started on it - erm, first husband, says I, that coil on the back you're attempting to take off has freon in it.
No problem, says he...........10 minutes later I'm on the phone with an electrician figuring out how dangerous the freon spraying around our apartment is.
10 minutes after that, the fridge is outside and the apartment is airing out nicely.

Ooooh, thinks hubby #1, let's spray paint it blue! So off we trot to the hardware store and pick up some cans of baby blue paint.
We open the doors, put the fan on to avoid getting fumed out and start spraying away merrily. The fridge looked FUCKING ACE!

Woke up the next morning and spent 3 days cleaning blue paint of every single surface.....floor.......ceiling........the cat was not too amused to be a delightful shade of baby blue.......
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Sun 6 Apr 2008, 18:00, 1 reply)

I've done that
Spraying Warhammer figures *cry* in an unventilated bathroom. I thought all was fine, in my fuzzy fume-addled world, until I picked up the newspaper I'd sat the figures on and realised that the rest of the floor no longer matched.

As a bonus, there was also an invisible film of green paint on my glasses, which added a Stingray-esque tint to the world for a couple of days until I figured it out.

Didn't have a cat at the time, but I did manage to paint a couple of rubber ducks.
(wellgroomedwookiee is a filthy-minded hobgoblin, Tue 8 Apr 2008, 16:04, closed)