The thing about being crap at DIY

It's an old (and tired) saying that DIY stands for 'Destroy It Yourself' rather than 'Do It Yourself' but I've managed to live up to it pretty well and am well known for being absolutely sh*te at anything other than gardening. Much as it mostly gives me the freedom not to do any of the jobs I don't like it is also very frustrating because I'd really like to be able to do some of these jobs, especially as I hate paying people to do them for me.

It's just lately the problem has being not so much having to give away money to people for doing the jobs that I don't want but more the buggers don't want to do them either, and often can't be a*sed to phone us and say so. But that's another tired old rant...

So this weekend I found myself trying my own hand at plastering. Yep, all the good DIYers say don't touch it with a barge pole, but after being let down by at least 10 different plasters I figured if I was crap at all the jobs others try then I may as well be crap at the one they won't. Who knows, I may even find out plastering is my thing.

I didn't.

The bit that needed doing was the kitchen i.e.

and about a quarter of the way through I was chuffed that most of it was actually sticking to the wall rather than falling straight on the floor. It was going off fast though but I was determined to get it something like. Then some friends arrived and took over and I probably owe Ade some gratitude as he pretty much saved the day. Or the wall at least.

It still looks bad but, as long as it stays stuck to the wall over night, should be good enough after quite a lot of sanding, filling, sanding, filling some more, sanding some more and a few layers of paint to hide the imperfections I'll no doubt introduce by sanding it too much.

Anyway, it now looks like this (notice the tiles are back - that was me and hopefully they'll 'weather in' eventually):


On a more positive note I can paint and the door to the cloakroom still actually shuts:


And the tiler actually finished! So we've gone from:
to this:
and the mirror still hasn't fallen off the wall.

Still loads to do, but I feel we're getting there now.