DIY gone mental.
Everyone at some point in their lives will have the urge to fix something or build something or invent something...... sort of like the time our sink fell off the wall and I tried to repair it by plastering the screws back in.

Well, my dad was never one for DIY when I was young. We've always been a proper working class family and had to "make do" with stuff until it was falling apart, but if it wasn't electrical, he had no idea how to fix it, so broken things had to be replaced (but only when they were basically destroyed).

Then I got married and moved out and became used to having things that, well, things that worked properly. After that little project of my own failed, I moved back in "for a little while" (another fail) and found to my growing horror that my dad had discovered the wonders of DIY. This house and everything in it hs become his own personal chamber of horrors as he glues, saws and hammers everything in the house to an inch of it's life and then some.

It all began when he converted the loft. He did it himself, a pretty big task, and he hasn't made a bad job of it.... not amazing but better than I could have done. A heating pipe got knocked loose in the process though and the water came through the ceiling into my room. He nailed a piece of board over it "just to hold it" until he could repair it properly. That was four years ago. It's still there.

One of the hinges on the fridge door broke. He replaced the hinge with the hinge from the freezer door. So now, we have a freezer door that almost falls off whenever you open it and a fridge which doesn't close properly becasue the hinge is fitted wrongly.

You have to pull the bathroom door handle upwards because it's broken. Ditto with the flush on the toilet.

Every *single* piece of furniture I have ever owned which I thought had long been thrown out has been amalgamated into some sort of huge storage monster up in the loft.

My mum, God rest her, put up with it in silence and so did I. I endured being hit on the foot with the freezer door and trapped in the bathroom (he neglected to mention the handle's antipodean nature), but when the shower broke and he proclaimed he would "repair" it, I felt enough was enough and told him to stop being an arse and go and get a new one.

The base has a huge crack in it (steady!) and the water was pouring down through the floor into the kitchen. We need a new base. I told him, we need a new base, I said. And so did my auntie. And anyone else I mention this to. "Get a new base" they say. But when I said it, I was argued to a standstill because I didn't know what I was talking about, all the modern bases have the holes in a different place (!) and the pipes wouldn't fit under them because they're so small and you would have to dig into the floor (it's a wooden floor, I got a bit scared he was going mental when he said that). Any further argument led to massive huffs and he said that he would "make a good job of it" and it wouldn't look "home made".

He super glued over the crack.

Yes.

I know.

Well, when the water started pouring through the now even larger crack I thought he'd relent. He glued it again. Then he glued a sheet of plastic over it. I resisted the urge to pry it up myself, knowing it would come free by itself soon enough, and about 2 showers later, it did.


When that failed he went to work. Like a one man A-Team, he constructed his little contraption, a wooden.... erm, sort of platform with a bath mat stuck to it, built to fit inside the base and spread the weight all around the edges instead of in the middle where it's cracked. It's razor sharp edges are about as comfortable as standing on Kate Moss, but it does what it's supposed to. He then sealed the crack with plastic sealant and glued another sheet of plastic over it, finishing it all off with a lovely duct tape trim. "Won't look home made" seems to have been flung out the window, but I am assured he will sort out the hideousness of the thing by simply glossing the duct tape.

I can only assume that this madness will finally end when he turns around while making dinner one day to discover me and the entire shower cabinet have came down into the kitchen. I have to get my own place soon before I go mental or, heaven forbid, his crackpot notions start making sense.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Tue 8 Dec 2009, 1:42, 3 replies)

Cant you send him away for the day
and get a plumber in?
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Tue 8 Dec 2009, 10:52, closed)

I've considered it
and even had an offer, but it's turned into one of those things where I'll have to be proven right :P
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Wed 9 Dec 2009, 1:10, closed)

hahaaa
this is totally what dads are for
( Mighty Nibus who dares gins | @nibus, Wed 9 Dec 2009, 11:18, closed)