Sunday Morning DIY

I sometimes wish I was a bit more rubbish at DIY. I mean it isn't a problem for blokes these days. I've got a couple of blokes who work for me who don't know one end of a screw driver from the other and it causes them no personal pain.

Me, however, I'm just about competent. I can build flat pack furniture fairly smartly. I can hang shelves on walls and I even made an extension for my wargames tables with folding legs. However to be honest it isn't really my thing. Take today for example. We had our downstairs cloakroom refitted a month or two back. All that was left to do was hang a mirror on the wall and replace the ceiling light fitting.

Now, if I was completely rubbish at DIY I'd not even try the latter job. I'd call an electrician and wait 6 weeks for him to turn up. Six weeks when I could happily sit and paint toy soldiers confident in a job that will eventually be well done. However, being me I got the fittings, screw drivers, insulating tape and so on and got going first thing this morning.

Of course nothing looks the same as the books when you take it apart, and so I spent 2 1/2 hours taking the fittings apart and re-assembling them . This one is different to all the ceiling fittings in the house and garage because of where it sits in relation to the out door light. Plus the YTS kid who did the electrical work on the house didn't label up the cable for the light switch. At various points I had:

1) No working lights at all down stairs
2) Working light in hall, but no others
3) Downstairs lights working properly but cloakroom light not working
4) Downstairs lights working properly but unable to turn off cloakroom light

I eventually finished off just after lunch, but an entire morning's painting and rule writing has gone, never to be recovered. Anyway, thank goodness for modern isolation switches, although I'm proud to say I never turned the power on at any point and have the switch trip.

So that's why my dragoons still languish on the desk part way through stage 3.

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