Would you marry for DIY skills? ?

Oh I do so miss my husband and realise just how much I did take him for granted. He was a carpenter and so clever DIY. I did not actually realise just how much until he passed away 2008 only aged 55yrs. I moved to downsize approx 2yrs afterwards and I had to do most of the decorating myself - and of course I was responsible for getting someone in for the more difficult tasks. Now looking back I remember he would be often on some DIY mission which I do so wish I took more interest in what he was doing. You just don't realise what you got until it goes.

NO NEVER! My husband is fantastic at DIY and building in general. It's not what he does for work but he just reads about it and can do it. People always say how lucky I am but I hate it. He works really long hours, often away from home but always doing some mammoth project. It eats into weekends and holidays. I've looked into solo holidays this year. I'm sick of the time and the bloody mess. I've actually reached the point where I'm beginning to hate my home!

I appreciated the lovely late Mr Cardigan for all sorts of reasons and his DIY skills were pretty good too, they weren't second to none but he had a practical turn of mind which meant that he could investigate something and figure out how it worked and could fix things reasonably well. Modestly he called some of his contraptions 'a bit Heath Robinson'.

I do miss him and his skills. His so-called clever brother is hopeless and my twin sister is married to a nice man but he's not a natural handyman either. I have passed on a phone number to her for a chap to come in and do those little jobs which he has never got round to as she's given up waiting.

I definitely didn't marry fur money as we are almost always broke but I can count on one hand the times I have ever had to "get a man in"
To do anything in the house. DH can turn his hand to most things ( except wallpapering, which I am very good at, if say so myself ) so between us we are pretty much self sufficient when it comes to DIY .

No if you marry for money you can pay a professional to do the work and they clean up after themselves unlike the diy husband I had

On the day before my wedding, my OH rang & asked if I could pop over to his mums to put a plug on the new colour TV he'd just bought her. I thought nothing of it, went round and hey presto she had colour TV.

In my starry eyed pre wedding condition, it never occurred to me that he as an adult should have been able to do this. In fact I was happy to help ....

Moving on 45 years DIY skills would be on top of my list!!!!
Alternatively I should have hidden my own skills. Too late now!

There are not many DIY skills in our house!.....apart from painting and decorating which we both enjoy together more like a hobby. Neither of us has mastered the art of wallpapering although everyone else we know thinks it's a doddle. Many of our shelves usually put up using NoNails adhesive. I never even considered the DIY before we married, my FiL was quite good with it and I suppose I assumed it was one of those things that sons just knew how to do by watching/ helping their fathers. I have friends whose husband's seem experts at this, forever having something or other on the go....and for that reason I am happy not to have a DIY loving husband as the the house would never be finished in our case.

Oh good heavens no. Marry someone for their DIY skills - get a man - in fact get a succession of men in- especially if I didn't have to get married at all.

Would snap him up in a flash! My late husband was great at the theory and planning, but useless at anything practical. If he even changed a plug, I had to check the wiring as he was colourblind and always got the wiring wrong!

I think marrying for DIY skills is a great idea! - I am married to a man who has never had a clue in that regard. Build a TV? - no problem! Put up a curtain pole? - hmm.

Aren't you all lucky!
My DH is very good with/at money/finances - in fact, he helps people at the local Age COncern - but like others, he is a founder member of Bodgers United. I have better DIY skills than he does, however limited.
But then the joke was that I married him for his money - he paid more in tax than i earned net at the time - and he had a car and a house. what else could a girl want!!!

My DH is brilliant at DIY too, although I didn't know this when we got married aged 20. Our son didn't inherit the gene!

welshwife we are definitely married to twins - mine dug over a huge area outside our front gate, and started a "guerrilla garden" ... when he was recovering from a heart attack. It is now the local community vegetable garden, like a mini allotment. He will also "fix" something to improve it make it look better even when not needed. But has not yet gone so far as building a room we don't need

As for lending him out ... he has a queue of my single women friends and neighbours to fend off as it is! . He cut down a big overgrown bush for the woman next door and she came out of the house and threw her arms around him saying "You have lit up my life" - unattended for years, it had made her lounge very dark.

Not only is my DH a financial wizard, but he's an amazing DIY-er. Many years ago he trained as an electrician and worked on building sites so pretty much all skills are covered. I'm full of admiration for him as although he had a terrible childhood he has achieved great things. (Could happily strangle him at times though.... Perhaps the only thing he's not expert at is the computer, and gets quite tetchy when another male has to come to the house to show him how to do things. I don't think I could have lived happily with someone inept at DIY, not to mention the expense of getting people in all the time to fix even minor problems.

Oh grannyknot where do you live - can you spare him for a month or three to do my mountain of little jobs that need doing
Mine does nothing - won't even try most things - with the odd thing over the years he has attempted he makes the biggest bodge up, I always say he tries one thing and makes ten more jobs to put it right. Sure he does it on purpose so he won't get asked - surely no-one can be so awkward at doing odd jobs you're saying - yes they can
His expertise is switching on the tele and even that, if it doesn't react immediately he is pressing every button in sight - no patience at all

No, certainly not marry for these skills ( useful as they are )
DH is pretty useful when he puts his mind to it, but we leave some things for the experts.Electrics being a case in point.

My DH proudly says he has two left hands but he is good in other ways...
does most of the cooking, for example. I call him the hunter gatherer as he is always the first to know when we are running low on provisions and will go and but said item. Okay more of a gatherer.

You are so lucky to have such skilled DHs. Mine is the founder of the Bodgers United Society - or at least that's what I call him and he agrees! He is excellent at computer stuff and does a lot of household tasks like gardening,laundry,dishwasher,cleaning the loos and doing the bins (boys jobs per Mrs May!) but we have to get in the pros for any proper DIY stuff. I have got used to that over the years and accept that we are all different and bring different attributes to the marriage.

DIY skills are a massive deal. The going rate for a handyman around here is 180 pounds a day!

DIY skills are such a godsend. Unfortunately it means everyone else says 'can R just do this little job for me' which usually evolves into something more complicated, our jobs get put on hold whilst he helps others. I wouldn't change him for the world.

Oh how lucky you both are! To me those qualities are much better than having money. My ex was useless around the house. (Spent his money on himself too!) I did have a partner for a lot of years who did all my decorating which was a good help.

I too appreciate H's skills. He wont tackle plumbing apart from changing a washer or bleeding the rads or electrics but he does everything else Mr Grannyknot does and with the same skill and flair.
He's also a lovely man, I picked a goidun

GrannyK. I think we must be married to twins!!! Mine is much the same - the only thing I would say is not his forte is to do nice neat grouting -but I can do that - or to fill in the similar gaps between to sheets of plasterboard - we have a builder friend who we employ to assist with jobs which cannot be done by one and I am too weak to assist with - and he is a dab hand with doing the gaps ready for painting.
As you say it saves so much money having it in house and ideas can be modified along the way. We have now renovated 3 houses - he has one son who is a Corgi gas man and another who is an electrician and the third is a bricklayer and plasterer so in UK we could call on those skills too. DH is qualified to do plumbing but his DS is much faster.
He is at the moment nearing the end of building another room - which we do not need! Last year he was so ill he almost died and when he recovered he announced he was going to build this room which involved making a floor suspended from the roof joists of the internal barn - my pleas to not do it fell on deaf ears. He was doing it to prove to himself that he could still do it I realised.
Like you I did not marry him for the skills but. It is useful!