My mates’ dad was a notorious bodger
(not in the rapey sense, move on if that's what you were after) This man demolished a support wall in his house and when told it was unsafe, propped it up with a 2x2 bit of pine. He had to get it sorted properly when cracks went up the bedroom walls.
The one I witnessed whilst it happened was when he bought a Fiesta for his son (the car, not the scrot mag). There was a fist sized hole around the headlight so proceeded to fill it with a bit of cardboard prior to finishing it off with filler. We stood and watched as the cardboard soaked up the water in the filler, lost its shape and fell out. Not to be embarrassed in front of a bunch of giggling kids, he added more and more cardboard and filler till the headlight and indicator ended up fused to the inside of the wing.
Another of his genius DIY jobs was to replace the staircase in the house with a nice stained wooden thing. This was also unsupported and sagged and creaked when an adult went up and down the stairs. He thought it was too heavy so removed the balustrade and banisters.
He installed a serving hatch between the kitchen and lounge which wasn't level and too low. It needed a good shove to open one of the hatch doors and smacked the head of anyone sitting on the sofa any time it was opened.
He tarmac’d his own driveway but didn't remove the previous drive slabs first so ended up sealing the bottom of the garage door. He had to dig out a 6" wide trench to enable to door to be opened.
We all enjoyed going round to his house as we looked forward to see what the next DIY gem would be.
(TitanLX, Thu 10 Mar 2011, 15:11, Reply)