D.I.Y from a female view...what is the most extreme you have tackled.

M0nica DH built and fitted a kitchen for his mother when he was home from school for the summer holidays. He was 15 at the time.
He is an engineer too and always loves to have a project - as long as it's not decorating!

Well I can do the usual painting, papering, upcycling, wire a plug, the simple stuff.

Many years ago with exH I had been asking him for ages to put an extra socket in the corner of our lounge, perfect for a lamp. He never did it even though there was a socket conveniently located in the next room to run a new one from.

One day I was fed up waiting. I drilled a hole in the stud wall at socket level between the two rooms. Fed the flex from a 3 gang extension through the wall, refitted the plug to it in the next room and plugged it in. Voila... I had 3 extra sockets in the lounge. Moved a nice foliage plant into place to hide the flex going into the wall. Job done.

Mind you, not knowing the difference in one drill bit from another, it took me ages to drill the hole. I had assumed that a metal drill bit would be well capable of dealing with a bit of plaster board, didn't realise that there's actually more to it than that.

Jalima, that is why I do all the decorating.

I hate decorating M0nica
We usually do it together when it really needs doing.

It’s hardly at the same level as you expert diy people but years ago I horrified our neighbour by painting the outside of the house. He asked where my husband was and was even more horrified when I told him DH was in the kitchen cooking dinner!
DiL in waiting has her own sledgehammer and does maintenance work as a volunteer in a charity. DS has good taste in women?

Only painting. The most PITA effort being a whole ceiling-height wall of horrible fitted white melamine wardrobes - sound and functional but horrible - in our bedroom.
We were quoted something like £4K to replace them!

Instead I waited until Dh was away on business for a week, emptied the whole thing - an operation in itself - bought some cupboard paint, rubbed the whole lot down and applied two coats.
Then removed all the horrible handles - a lot since there were drawers as well - and replaced with wooden ones from Wickes.
Total cost £65! And it all looked so much better.

I unblocked the sewer pipe to septic tank. First big job after retirement, DH still working. Took a few days of intermittent bailing out s**t from trap followed by using long pipe to try to clear blockage. Nearly giving up when suddenly lots of gurgles and then all water etc started flowing - very satisfying (if smelly) job.!
That year I also cut down some trees in garden.

Ooh love D.I.Y also,just don't do as much now,built a new pond last year,have also opened up and built fireplaces,ripped out fitted wardrobes,refitted kitchen once when younger haha,would rather do d.i.y than housework!!

Gosh, I am truly in awe of you BG. What you have done puts my little accomplishments well and truly in the shade, but OK, I will tell of them anyway, with pride . I always do all the wallpapering, including a hall, stairs and landing with a very high stairwell - the longest drop took an entire roll of wallpaper . I can't paint for toffee though, so DH always does that. Well, I can paint with emulsion, that's easy enough, but gloss always defeats me.
I also tiled the kitchen/breakfast room with ceramic tiles, using matchsticks as spacers. It looked lovely when finished, but had to go when the kitchen was gutted due to damp problems. I was gutted too .
I also made a wooden planter for the garden, from tanalised timber. It's about 6' x 2'6" x 2', standing on bun feet to allow for drainage, and has a mitre wood edging all round the top. It's held together with 112 galvanised screws (I remember counting them at the time!) - all screwed in by hand, not electric screwdriver! I made this about 20 years ago, and it's still going strong.
So that's my little contribution to the DIY girl power

I meant that I tiled the kitchen/breakfast room floor.

Had to resort to DIY back in the past as no way could I afford professionals. Always did general decorating - painting wallpapering. etc. Using books, (Pre-u-tube) managed to tile a bathroom reasonably well. The old plaster wall between the rooms of my female twins and male younger brother, had holes poked in it. I took this down and replaced with plasterboards and papered, That was reasonably easy enough, but then I tried to lay a carpet in that small squarish bedroom and got into all sorts of problems. Would never again attempt anything involving carpet.

I once dug up our drive with a Kango hammer I had hired.

I had a chain saw for Christmas 2016 but whenever I threaten to use it someone decides there is another way of doing it, usually paying someone.

I am married to the King of DIY, so have no chance of showing off any skills in that direction (if I had them that is). However, I have moved house with no help at all several times and am very proud of the efficient way each move went. (And that each time I left an immaculate house behind.)

We demolished our old brick and flint cottage and built a new house, reusing the flints and bricks. I spent nearly 5 months cleaning the old mortar off 7000 Suffolk bricks and grading them, all the time keeping ahead of the 2 brickies.

One of the first things I learned was to clean out the cement mixer at 4 o'clock every afternoon. I paid the brickies to lay bricks not to clean the lime mortar out of the mixer.

Apart from that I just assisted DH with the electrics, plumbing, underfloor heating, installing windows and doors. Also acted as banksman for delivery drivers who had to turn round in the road as we are rather close to an 8'3" high railway bridge.

It was nothing like "Grand Designs" - a programme I refuse to watch.

Well, I think that tops the lot chocolatepudding!

As a single parent with very little cash I had to do most DIY. I was much stronger then and I don't think I could lay flagstones anymore or remove a large stone floor to ceiling fireplace. I eventually built a dry stone wall in the garden with the stones which is still standing strong.

I did all the decorating and probably the most comical scenes would be putting up coving - lots of careful measuring and preparation and then a row of chairs to run along to place the coving quickly under the ceiling before the adhesive dried. I had to have a decorator to do the high landing and stairs however and he was so impressed with all my other efforts he offered me a job!!

I did usually avoid more complex electrical and plumbing jobs for safety reasons!

My Bible was the Readers Digest DIY Manual. Did anyone else use that?

ohh Grandma2213 I used to have that book!! lol oh you have brought back memories...it was a big thick grey one (well thumbed) lol

Love reading all your D.I.Y stories you are all brilliant...

(Juts off to sort the leaky radiator with that ptf tape) hope it works!! ta ra Keep up the good work gals!

Grandma2213 you've brought back memories - yes, we had that book too! A friend worked for Readers Digest and we got it "cheap"! Used it lots on our first house which was a true wreck, then less and less as we moved "up" the ladder. Wonder where it went in the end?