measuring - A fundamental art

You couldn't make this up, I swear.

About a week ago I got a call from a long time customer.  Yes, Jan!  I'm going to name and shame you like I promised!!  Jan has a great sense of humour but sadly her measuring skills leave a little to be desired.  In the said phone call, Jan told me she wanted a new vanity unit in her en-suite shower-room installed.  I offered to call round and measure up but she was quite confident she could administer such a basic task and she would go and buy a new vanity then call me when it had arrived.

A couple of days ago I got another call alerting me to the fact the new vanity had indeed arrived and was sat proud as Punch in the garage waiting for me to install it.

This morning, I rocked up with all the necessary tools and, just to see how much room I had to play with measured again.  Mmmm.....had the bathroom shrunk?  Had someone been in and moved a complete wall? I was in desperate need of almost 50 mm.  Not a lot, I grant you, but enough to stop the unit sitting pretty in its assigned spot. 

I called Jan in, who brought in her tape.  The space in which the vanity was going, between the shower screen and the wall according to Jan's measuring showed a gap of over 900mm and as the unit was 895mm she seemed perplexed as to what I was talking about until I directed my gaze to the shower-tray lip, which projected almost 60mm further out than the screen.

Now, as I am always telling customers, there is always a way round the problem.  I couldn't cut the vanity to size or the door on one side wouldn't open, so my suggestion was to take it back and find something smaller.  Jan had a far better idea.  "Why dont you take down the shower screen and knock out the shower tray and make the shower smaller?"

Quite simply.  It would be nigh on impossible to find matching tiles to replace the broken ones with.

So we had a coffee, at which point Jan decided she didn't like the tiles anymore, didn't like the shower enclosure and wanted the whole thing ripped out and replaced.

LESSON #2 - MAKE SURE YOU MEASURE TWICE (AND CUT ONCE) AND CHECK THERE IS NOTHING ELSE BUTTING INTO THE SPACE YOU ARE MEASURING

The upshot is - Whole new ensuite all for the sake of a new vanity unit.  I must admit......nice unit.

After I rip it all out tomorrow, I'll tell you all about tiling and how to do it.  Most people think its really difficult and are terrified to attempt it.  Its a cinch!  And tomorrow you will start finding out how easy it is.

Until next time

Helping you with DIY

          So, there I was.  A vertigo sufferer, ten metres up a ladder, one hand clutching a heavily loaded paint brush and the other, white knuckles gripping the top rung tightly enough to indent the aluminium.  Somewhere beneath the folds and creases of my overall, Mozart's 40th belted out.

          The following seconds took a lifetime.  Juggle hands, the brush, go into at least four hundred and forty two pockets, retrieve the phone, press the little green button, and prevent myself from hurtling towards the cold hard concrete below

          "Is that Handyandy?"  They opened

          "Yes.  How can I help you?"  There was a wet sensation on the upper side of my head.  Damn!  In the confusion I had somehow passed the brush from my right hand and upon placing the mobile to my ear was now painting the side of my head a rather fetching china blue.

          "I need your help....and I need it quick!"  The caller sounded more out of breath than I was.  "I've been doing some DIY..."  he continued as I rolled my eyes into the top of my head.  "....and I've got serious problems." 

          My caller, against the advice of his wife who clearly doubted her husband's abilities, had decided 'getting a man in' was going to be too costly.  Afterall, he only wanted an extra doorway from his lounge room into his kitchen.  How hard could it be?

          He had knocked a 'small' hole in a 'structural wall' and had 'somehow' fractured a pipe causing his living room to fill with water. 

          Twenty minutes later I was staring into a sunken lounge room fast resembling a state room on the Titianic moments before it slipped beneath the icy surface of the Atlantic ocean to the murky depths below.  Had he turned the water off?  I ran for the stop tap outside.

LESSON # 1 - BEFORE DOING ANY DIY ALWAYS CHECK WHERE WATER AND GAS PIPES AND ELECTRICAL CABLES RUN !!!  IF YOU ARE IN THE SLIGHTEST DOUBT CALL IN A TRADESMAN,  IF THERE ARE, HAVE THEM ISOLATED BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING.

Its also a good idea to take measurements and not guess that the water pipes in the laundry on the other side of the lounge room wall aren't near OR RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of where you are trying to make a hole.(The kitchen was almost a metre away from where he thought it was).

          As for the structural wall....it wasn't.  But why he entertained the idea of launching a ten pound lump hammer at a wall he thought was holding up the back half of the house and much of the roof is probably only known by his therapist and possibly God.

          The outcome?  I sent him for a pump to get the water out and let it dry for a couple of days.  I repaired and re-routed the pipes and put in his doorway, complete with door, repainted and he was a happy man.  The wife was on holiday visiting relatives and she is blissfully unaware and thought he had done the right thing and 'got a man in'. (I assume she is unaware - I have done much more work there since and she hasn't mentioned it).

          This is just one of the many times I have been called upon to sort out someone else’s mess and often wonder why Dentists never get calls requiring help because someone has decided to fill his or her own teeth

          Do you have any disaster stories?  Do you need any help or advice about how to do something for yourself?  If you do, put up a post and (if it’s a disaster story) give us a laugh, if its advice I'll do my best to help.

          Until next time.