This past weekend I mostly finished the all-consuming DIY project I’ve been working on over the last couple of months. I wish I could say it was something exciting like a new BBQ area with a swimming pool, jacuzzi, and a wood-fired pizza oven, but the reality is we’ve just redecorated the three least exciting spaces in the house: the toilet, the hallway and the laundry. 

Photo by Roselyn Tirado on Unsplash

Still, despite the everyday mundanity of the spaces, there are few things in life better than that warm, happy feeling of satisfaction you get on completing a substantial DIY project, especially when it all comes together without any major cock-ups along the way. There were a couple of minor cock-ups (more about that later), but I managed to get this project done without losing any of my fingers, electrocuting anyone, falling off any ladders or putting any holes in walls, floors, or ceilings that I didn’t intend on being there.

The bulk of the job was painting, which, although time-consuming, is pretty straightforward, and with most of the house having already been repainted since we moved in, my wife and I are well-practised. Less straightforward was my plan to install a new attic ladder in the hallway, a new cistern in the toilet, and a new tub, bench and cabinetry in the laundry. I can’t say I completed these parts of the project without any profanity, but overall, everything went remarkably smoothly, especially the attic ladder, which I was worried about, having never installed one before. But it went in almost without a hitch, and now we have a space other than our mouse, rat, and possum-infested shed in which to store some of the junk that has accumulated over the years in our household of five.

The most unpleasant part of the job was removing the ‘popcorn’ texture from the ceiling in the hallway. I don’t know why this technique ever became popular in the first place as it’s just a magnet for dirt, grime, and fly-shit and it’s impossible to keep clean. I watched a couple of YouTube videos to see how to do it – spray some water on and it just glides off with a scraper – but our ceiling had at least two coats of paint applied over the texture so there was no gliding. Scraping it off took serious elbow grease and my arms were aching after only a few minutes.

After I’d completed half the job (and taken a break for about a month) someone suggested the bright idea of using an electric sander to take the paint off the highest points of the popcorn. This allowed the water to soak in and made it much easier to scrape the rest of the texture off, but it was still a horrible job. I got covered in pale, plastery goo and looked like an extra-large baby had just thrown up all over me. It’s the kind of job that would be perfect for a teenage child who’s going through one of those phases which makes them difficult to like. You could tell them you’ve given them the job so they can learn responsibility and the value of hard work when really you would be punishing them for being rude and unpleasant. My own children, although perfectly capable of being stroppy and obnoxious when the mood strikes them, aren’t quite old enough to have lost their ‘cuteness factor’ (nor are they yet tall enough to reach the ceiling), so unfortunately it was left up to me. However, we still have to repaint the living room (which has the same textured ceiling) at some stage, so I’m thinking I’ll give it a year or three and then pass on the baton.

My biggest concern of the entire project was cutting the hole out of the bamboo benchtop for the laundry sink. I was optimistic I could do it, having done the same job when we installed a new kitchen several years ago after we first moved in, but being a $500 piece of wood, it wasn’t something I could afford to get wrong. At 35mm thick (that’s about 1 and a 1/2 inches for you imperialists out there), it’s also not the kind of thing my $20 bargain bin jigsaw is designed to cut, and there were several times during the extended process (with my entire body vibrating as I gripped the jigsaw; with coils of smoke curling up from the blade as it slowly burned as much as cut its way through the wood; with spatters of rain falling on my shoulders and one eye on the horizon where a bank of charcoal clouds was rolling in and promising to dump water all over my electricity supply) where I was sorely tempted to give up.

The reason I didn’t was that I wasn’t sure what the alternative was (heading into town to buy a better jigsaw or paying a professional to do the job seemed both time-consuming and unnecessarily expensive options) and because, as painful and slow as the progress I was making was, it was still progress. In the end, it took about forty minutes to make the cut and I was able to finish, get the benchtop in place and pack up my electrical gear just before the rain started pouring down. I also managed to tick a present off my Christmas list – with a bit of work, the piece of wood that came out of the hole will make a great chopping board.

I balanced the success of this part of the project by making a right cock-up of the next thing I attempted. This resulted in an explosion of profanity, directed at myself. When I showed my wife what I’d done I’m sure she wanted to call me names as well, but since I’d already made such a good job of it I think she felt sorry for me and her response was remarkably mild. See if you can pick out my error in the picture below.

As you can tell, I’ve tried to disguise it, but when my brother came to visit on Saturday and I showed him my handiwork, the first thing he said to me was, “Did you drill the holes for the pantry handle on the wrong side of the door?”

“Yes,” I said, “yes I did.” Bastard, bastard, bastard, I thought.

“Did you do that before you assembled the cabinet?” he added, clearly unable to comprehend how anyone could do something so stupid.

“No,” I said, “I just absent-mindedly drilled them in the wrong place.” I didn’t tell him I was humming to myself with the joy of a job well done while I was doing it.

“Pity,” he ended with, “otherwise it looks good.”

“Thanks,” I said lamely, because what else could I say?

The project’s not quite finished. You’ll notice the absence of a washing machine. This is because – Murphy’s Law – our front-loader started making an unholy racket a few days ago and I’ve taken it into the repair shop to see what the problem is. Until it’s either repaired or we purchase a new one, we’re using Nana’s laundry service instead.

This is why I love DIY! Not only do you get that feeling of satisfaction that comes at the completion of a project, you get all the entertainment value it provides along the way.

Do you love DIY? If so, why? Let me know in the comments.

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