DIY for complete and utter n00bs

Tothiel has good advice. I personally had much better luck with FrogTape rather than blue painter's tape. When getting ready to paint, cleaning the walls and removing any previous imperfections (i.e. scrapping off flecks of old paint and sanding down bumps) will help a lot. Make sure you make out a materials list prior to, it sucks forgetting something and having to run back to the store (when you get into plumbing, expect to do that a lot). A good quality primer will work out well for you, and a tip my old man taught me was to try out a few different colors on scrap wood and hold it up against the wall in the room you're going to paint to get an idea of how it'll look in the lighting. I had to help a friend repaint his room as he loved a shade of green in the store but when he painted his walls with it it looked like someone had been sick on his walls and it was radioactive.

 

Ok, just a quick update regarding the price I was quoted. I posted the quote on facebook and twitter and overwhelmingly people have said the quote was a fantastic one... Others questioned whether they would do a good job for so cheap...

Oh and a Dulux Paint Pod is about £70...

 

Well, I mean, it just depends; I’ve known guys who have done excellent work on the cheap when they are hard up, and I’ve known people who charge high end who most certainly aren’t worth it. In other words, I’d ask for some sort of reference. If they are local, maybe you could ask around at the paint stores about them. That said, no matter what they charge, you are going to have to be careful. There are a million and one ways to get screwed as a homeowner when it comes to this sort of thing.

I wish I could be more helpful with this part, but I simply don’t know enough about where you live to comment on what a proper quote should look like.

If you use that thing, let me know how it goes if you can. I’m curious as to how well it will work after three or four rooms.

 

Well at first I was taken aback by the quote, but thinking about it, it's all the "little" "fiddly" jobs such as hole and crack filling, sanding down stuff, cutting away some stuff to replace it with newer stuff, that takes the time.

The actual painting I don't think will be too bad (the high wall in the hall behind the stairs will be tricky), just needs careful planning and execution as everyone says.

I nearly forgot, one of my fellow kung fuers is an assistant decorator, so he's going to give pointers. His first point is to give the house the once over. His second point is "don't buy the paint pod"

 

Holy God!

In other news I've been given a estimate of almost £3k to remove the filthy existing carpet and to lay down new underlay, carpet and fake wood flooring...

 

£3K!?! Are the putting down some sort of special silk memory foam underlay made from the silk of the very rare golden ass kissing carpet underlay silk worm? Oh wait ... fake wood flooring can be expensive. Real wood will kill you.

 

By "fake wood" are you talking laminate or vinyl? There's some really good vinyl stuff around now. Has a texture and everything. Fit it properly and nobody will know if you don't tell.

 

This was carpeting the living room, stairs, landing, four bedrooms and vinyl for the hallway, conservatory and maybe the bathroom and en suite (though tiles might be better in the latter two areas).

Obviously it was a very rough estimate and price was using their cheapest underlay (£7 per square meter). I was also quoted £4 per square meter to lay down the carpet, and just under £3 per square meter to lift up the old stuff and bin it (eh?). The vinyl stuff seems pretty good quality but we may have to put down plywood and/or some membrane (all depends on the floor underneath apparently) which was about £20 per square meter (not including the vinyl itself).

I figured this was financial rape of the highest order, so whacked up a post on Facebook to air my disgust. About 10 replies later it's revealed that I'm an "idiot" and that this price was beyond cheap and some "welcome to the real world".

Obviously I'm looking elsewhere and cutting corners where I can (keeping the existing underlay, having carpet in the living room I stead of flooring), but maaaaaan this home owning is pricey like...

 

May I suggest that you find a corner of carpet and rip it up? If it's typical carpet then you can take definitely take it up yourself and save yourself the money. If not, well, he'll be taking it up anyway.

 

Oh, I'm ripping it up myself and apparently where I live there are dedicated sites I can take old carpet to.

 

Oh thank god, I didn't want to insult you but I was thinking terrible, unflattering thoughts.:evil:

 

Bwahahaha. When the guy was quoting me prices for removing and disposing I was thinking "why the hell would anyone pay those prices". You could easily take a knife to it and cut it up.

 

It is pricey. Rip up the old carpet yourself. It's really very easy. Get a stanley blade and just cut it into strips. Bag it and take it to the dump. It's carpet. I don't think there's any special requirements for it. I put mine in my wheely bin and the bin men took it no problem. Although I am in Scotland where we're governed by a touch more common sense. That should shave some money off the top for you.

 

I've been told a couple things. There's apparently council sites here which will accept carpet as it isn't allowed in normal rubbish. However, a trainee builder mate says on his site they just cut it up and black bag it.

At any rate, I can take it up no worries and a mate has offered the use of his van to trash it.

 

Cool. Happy cutting. Watch out for the dust mite faeces.

 

I think that's the least of my worries with this carpet. It is filthy!!!

 

Since we're on the subject of DIY, figured I might as well ask a question: anyone have any experience cutting tires in half? I figured a reciprocating saw with a metal cutting blade would do the trick, but I'll be darned if I can only get through about half of it. I'm trying to make a striking post with two tires halves on it for my back yard to work on my strikes, kicks, blocks, etc.

 

You'll be needing something that can cut through metal. Tires are laced with metal wire to add some strength.

 

Looking on Facebook, one of my seniors has a tyre with a pole straight up the middle on a stand. He's using it to practice his Eskrima but I'm not sure it would stand up to kicking, perhaps with a bigger base.

 

That's what I'm running into that's slowing me down. I'm using a sawzall which should theoretically cut through it but near the inner ring and right around the middle of the tread it's like no matter how much I cut I can't get through. I tried using a pair of wire cutters to snip through a bit which was slowly working, but I had to give up once my son woke up from his nap. Going to try some more here today.