Do It Yourself
First House
| Current House
I guess my interest in Home Improvement or
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) began when I was a teenager. The
prospect of a little pocket money for helping family and
friends decorate was all that was needed to get me
interested. My Dad had a very much instinctive method for
how to do jobs about the house but my elder brother
Richard had a more logical way of doing things - he read
the instructions or 'consulted the bible' (a big,
illustrated DIY manual). This latter method seemed much
easier for me and using the bible I became confident
enough to try all manner of jobs from electrical work,
plumbing, plastering, you name it, if it was in the bible
I was confident I could do it. Of course I didn't always
get it right first time but then, since no-one was paying
me professional rates, I didn't feel too guilty about
doing sub-professional jobs! To be honest, I don't recall
ever doing anything which was unsafe or which 'the
customer' was dissatisfied.
So by the time I was at university, I normally ended
up supplementing my grant during the vacations by fitting
in at least one DIY job at either my Mum & Dad's
house, my middle brother Anthony's house or my Grandma's
house. Apart from the standard decoration and general
repair jobs I guess the pinnicles of my DIY projects were
the two kitchens I designed and fitted and the 30m x 3m
ally-way I re-cobbled.
Now this was all well and good and passed a little
time and earned a little money but it was sometimes a
little annoying that I had to bow to the wimms of 'the
customer', no matter how weird I believed them to be
(Anthony!). What I needed was a house of my own where I
could do exactly what I wanted.
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