DIY for complete and utter n00bs

The favourite thing they steel around her from empty houses is copper. Which is closely followed by the slabs from the front path, any plants in the gardens and the fencing. They don't take the lawn. But they do dig holes all over it in an attempt to catch worms for fishing bait.

If only they'd paid attention to basic science at school and learnt that a little washing up liquid and a good soaking of the ground does the job better with less damage.

 

They'd probably nick the nails. Seeing as they're metal

 

Ok, to weigh up the pros and cons of DIY Vs professional, I managed to get a guy in to give me a quote. To do a kitchen, alcove, downstairs toilet, living room, hallway (which has a ridiculously high wall), landing and four bedrooms, including ceilings (cove included), skirting boards, and filling in the holes and cracks, pulling up the carpet and disposing of it, sugar soaping the doors and frames (they don't need painting), will set me back £1050. Two of the rooms have a single wall painted dark red and dark green which will require a million coats if white before the real paint is slapped on.

Is that good or bad?

I'm leaning towards heading to B&Q tomorrow to get stuff to do it myself...

Also, good god!!! How much is carpet???

 

Carpet? Depends on the quality, thickness of the pile and how much of it you want. I have really big rooms.

Couldn't tell you if your quote is good or bad. How much will it cost to do on your own? Less than £1050 I'll bet.

 

Doing it ourselves would run into only a few hundred quid I'd wager, but it's a big job. I was hoping for it to be only a paint job and a few picture holes to fill in. However, there's a few hair line cracks, huge cracks in the plaster in the corners of 3 rooms. Dodgy dark coloured walls which need several white coats before we whack on our neutral colour and some if the skirting boards had already been attacked by the previous owner and he dud a very poor job of corking them...

I just don't know where to start and time is an issue.

Edit: Speaking to friends who have had carpeting, I'm probably looking at £2000 just to carpet the stairs and four bedrooms... I'm all "ya what now?"

 

Okay if your brain is exploding then ask yourself this. Can you afford to shell out £1050 on a DIY job you could easily do yourself? That's what it comes down to. The more you procrastinate the less time you have.

 

Hmmmmm... I see what you mean.

I spoke to a friend who was in a similar position to me. He sought advice, with most people telling him to do it himself. He caused £1500 worth of damage with a paintbrush and some gun for squirting stuff into cracks and holes. It eventually cost him £3000 to get a professional in to finish the job.

His moral of his story was "never, ever trust anyone who says it's an easy job".

Having said all that, seriously, what damage could I really do? Bit of builders cork or filler into holes and cracks, sand down the excess till flush, then roll on the paint.

 

There's no massive rush other than we want to get everything done by September. We can't move in during August as it's apparently unlucky (chinesers and their funny beliefs).

I've started painting a small part of the en suite already (in Jade White which is blue... ). Bits of it looks ok (if I say so myself) but other parts, after drying appear lumpy... I'm using Dulux Bathroom+ with Moulster...

 

I don't mean to be rude. But I don't think your friend is giving you all the detail. You can't cause £1500 worth of damage with a paint brush even if you fire it repeatedly from a chicken cannon at random targets.

So long as the cracks in your walls aren't serious just fill them in. Sand and paint as you say. You get better results with holes if you square them off first. Just be delicate. If it's a deep hole then build up layers. Don't try to fill it all at once.

What gun was he using? I've never heard of a gun being used to fill holes unless it's insulation of waterproofing or some such.

 

You did give the paint a good stir before painting right?

 

You're not being rude at all, you're offering your point of view and advice which is what I've been asking for and I am extremely grateful for that.

I'm not even sure what he did. I sort of glossed over when he mentioned damage. Apparently he bought about 100 litres of some paint for £3 (yes three English pounds) and started brushing away. Parts of the wall came away (I'm assuming the plaster), anyway he continued with coat after coat and eventually did what he thought was a good job.

He filled in cracks with a gun that fired a putty or whatever, I couldn't tell you what kind of gun or putty and I'm pretty sure he couldn't either.

Anyway, paint peeled, taking away bits of wall, blah, blah, blah and when he eventually got someone in they gave him a price to fix it and a price to paint.

Edit: Okay, I've received a text from my mate, he says it was a decorator's caulk gun and it might not have been what he needed for the job...

 

Hahaha, yeah I did and checked for bumps on the wall. I'm very tempted to get one of those paint pod things...

 

Oh i was looking at those! Go get one. Let me know if they are any good :evil:

 

I mean, look at this bad boy!

http://www.dulux.co.uk/products/paintpod/paintpod_roller_system.jsp

 

Ok, I've come to a decision. I'm going to do the small bedroom, all of it. Holes, coving, walls, ceiling, skirting. If I mess up badly I'll get someone in. If I do a half decent job I'll move onto the games room (yes, you heard, I have a games room).

The problem place is the high wall behind me at the top of the stairs. I'm going to have to rent or buy one of those Transformer ladders and/or get exposed to cosmic radiation and gain stretchy powers...

 

OMG a decision! Well done. You will probably not regret it.

 

Wait. You said "probably"... What the heck?

 

Nothing just go do it.

 

Just take your time; prep is half the battle, once you have the proper surface to work on, it’s just a matter of what order to do things in. For example, don’t paint the walls before your ceilings and trim. Easiest plan of attack in my opinion would be:



1.) Trim (Let trim dry, then tape before moving forward. Use blue tape so that it doesn’t become too tough to pull back off. Also, you may want to find out what type of paint is already on the wood, if it’s oil, I would put oil back on it.)


2.) Ceilings (This way you don’t have to fuss with trying to get a straight cut line out of the ceiling. It’s simply easier to over shoot the cut on the ceiling and straighten it out with the wall color.)


3.) Walls (So long as the surface is good to go, and you don’t get in a hurry, this will be the easiest part.)


You may want to try things out in the closet first to see what you’re most comfortable with. And remember, no matter what you do, there will be imperfections, this is true in even in the most expensive houses with the best materials money can buy.
--------


As for the quote you received, it’s hard to say if it’s a good quote or not. I mean, it doesn’t sound horrible or anything. However, that’s a judgment from an extremely limited position.