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A DIY project went so disastrously wrong a local court order banned the homeowner – and anyone else for that matter – from entering the house. In fact the ‘dwelling’ fell so far wrong of Housing Act safety provisions, the list of transgressions is literally as long as your arm – an arm that could be seriously damaged, along with the rest of you, if one was to ignore the order. Here is a choice selection of the DIY donkey’s mistakes:

• A bedroom loft-conversion that had only a three feet high roof, with pallets used as makeshift stairs
• A chimney made structurally unsafe by the DIY removal of the chimney breast.
• A pleasant water feature inside the house, namely an open drain.
• There’s no lighting in the house, but illicit visitors can always use their noses to appreciate the open drain.
• The house had no heating or wall insulation
• The owner obviously appreciates the minimalist touch, having only one electricity socket in the entire house.
• There is no hot water in the kitchen or bathroom. That would be decadent.

Still, none of these problems stopped DIY’s Doctor Danger from finding a nice but gullible lady tenant to rent the house to. And that was after the court order had been issued.

If even this deathtrap can be let then the rental market really must have  gone through the roof – even if in this case the house doesn’t actually have one.

RED THE NEW BLACK!

Hot news from DIY and Trade Retailer B&Q says we’ve all seen red – from hall to loft conversion and every room in between it seems.

Magnolia, the nation’s previous choice of neutral shade (read bland, boring colour designed to be as inoffensive to as many people as possible) is just so yesterday man, as funky scarlet and cool crimson take over as our numero uno.

So dramatic has this change been according to B&Q’s survey, reds are outselling magnolia by 2 to 1.

Main reason for the change is that, as the housing market stays sluggish, abodes are being treated like homes again with interior design reflecting the householder’s tastes – and not those of their estate agent.

National Home Improvement Show 30 September to 2 October 2011

Need to know – need to go more like as the National Home Improvement Show comes to Earls Court London this month, opening 30th September and closing 2nd October!

It’s a must for anyone thinking of improving their home in the near future, or just interested in what can be done to give a home some extra va-va-voom! Either way, it’s well worth battling your way through a mass of itinerant Australian bar staff to get their.

Highlights include:

* The Interiors Pavilion: Julia Kendell and other experts will guide you through giving a new look to your home whether it is an Elizabethan listed building to a post-modern flat in a reclaimed industrial property.

* The Exhibitors: Lots of companies exhibiting their wares from simple paints to the most baffling restoration projects.

* Real Homes Live!: The bods from the UK’s favourite home improvement magazine Real Homes will be on hand, holding a restored Victorian coal scuttle-full of seminars, Q&A’s and generally being the nice, helpful lot they are.

Tickets are a snip at £8 if bought in advance (before 3pm Thursday 29th September) or £12 if bought on the on the day. Call 0844 581 0802. Then once you’ve got your ideas, come and contact us lot at DU.IT and we’ll make your dreams come true – ah, ain’t that nice!

SOLAR PANELS Don’t wish to boast old chap but we’re ‘Tomorrow Today!’ while you’re, well, just a bit ‘yesterday’. Typically we can give electricity for life AND earn my owner up to £1,650 tax free for 25 years. And you?

ROOF TILES Er, we’re cheap & keep the rain out.

SOLAR PANELS Oh well done! Not exactly rocket science, is it? We do that AND take advantage of the Governments ‘Clean Energy Cash Back Scheme’, although sign up for the scheme is for limited time period. And your plus points?

ROOF TILES We’re cheap & keep the rain out.

SOLAR PANELS And we’re clean & green, capturing the heat from that great big nuclear fusion reactor in the sky – the sun! Match that, my forgotten friend.

ROOF TILES We really are cheap & keep the rain out.

SOLAR PANELS Not exactly Einstein are we?

ROOF TILES Well theoretically my Mass (when multiplied by the Speed of Light and then Squared) can produce a LOT of Energy.

SOLAR PANELS Theoretically phooey, nor very green, whereas my carbon footprint is impeccable! Come on granddad, give me your best shot.

ROOF TILES We come in handy for martial artists too you know, they shatter loads of us with their hands, elbows, feet and stuff. It’s very impressive!

SOLAR PANELS Theoretically making and detonating a slate-based nuclear weapon every time you want to cook dinner is very impressive too, but it’s hardly a realistic basis for a green, clean & renewable national energy policy is it? And your steak would always be overdone.

ROOF TILES No-one’s ever seen a solar panel being karate chopped in half have they?

SOLAR PANELS That I concede. Congratulations! I wish you a long & happy time being smashed to bits – all very appropriate I’m sure.

ROOF TILES Don’t forget we’re cheap & and keep the rain out too!

SOLAR PANELS Not when you’ve been smashed to bits by some gorilla in his pyjamas you don’t.

The Leatherman Range

Claimed by some self-proclaimed scientists to be the only thing to exist at absolute zero (that’s – 273.15 oC, brrrr!) in the known universe, the Leatherman pocket multi-tool is so damn cool we don’t advise putting one in your trouser pocket. Hang one from your belt in it’s nifty little pouch for safety first max coolness.

With one of these beauties at your side, anyone named Bear Grylls or Ray Mears (who have the exact same skills as the survival experts with the same name) could whack up a nice little bungalow, complete with running water, within hours of being dropped slap bang in the middle of some otherwise inhospitable tropical place for average human beings.

We think the toughest thing about the Leatherman, after the person wearing one of course, is choosing which in the range to choose. Starting at a well equipped pocket knife plus for around £55, these babies go right on up to being Military Grade Utility tools. Easy to spot in the shop as they’re designated MUT (Military Grade Utility), our fave comes from the MUT range: the MUT EOD Black. It’s hard to spot at night as it comes all in black for night ops, e.g. fixing a fuse after dark. This one is even purposefully designed for Explosive Ordnance Disposal!

While the ordinary DIY-er isn’t advised to try building an extension single handed with nothing more than a Leatherman (even the one designed for explosive ordnance disposal) hanging from their shorts, we almost guarantee they’ll look a whole lot cooler, even when wearing socks with sandals!

Paint: Ah welcome, you must be next door’s new wallpaper! I admire your pluck, what with stripping off all the old wallpaper and things, preparing to hang you can be an absolute nightmare!

Wallpaper: We’re all new-builds, stupid – even you! Preparation is the same, assuming your builders took care with the stud walls and the studs don’t need hiding with my good self. We’re awesome at hiding imperfections whereas you -

Paint: Cut the wisecracks tree killer, none of us is perfect but you know as well as I do, as a general rule, painting takes less prep than wallpaper.

Wallpaper: Tree Killer! Me? That’s rich given the chemical industry’s history of environmental damage!

Paint: Let’s keep this professional shall we?

Wallpaper: I’d be delighted. Fact is there’s no way you can match my variety of textures, colours and finishes.

Paint: Au contraire! There’s satin, matt, gloss-

Wallpaper: Try tartan.

Paint: No-one likes a smart Alec you know.

Wallpaper: So you concede victory is mine?

Paint: Not a chance pal. For starters you’re rubbish in bathrooms as the heat and moisture can unstick what you’re stuck up with (stuck up – ain’t that the truth). And who ever heard of a wallpapered door, or other woodwork? Then there are exterior walls, uneven surfaces – fact is, you could decorate a house without wallpaper, but not without paint.

Wallpaper: Only cheap ones.

Paint: Told you, stuck up! You know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Yes, paint does usually offer the best value for money when decorating, but it can reach the sublime. For instance, take the frescoes of Michelangelo or Giabattista Tiepolo-

Wallpaper: This Tiepolo fella, didn’t Man City just buy him from Inter Milan?

Paint: It’s no good getting all populist with your football references now pal, your goose is cooked. High end makeover or value freshen up, paint’s the Daddy.

Wallpaper: OK, you may have a point. Unless you really do want tartan….

VERDICT: 2-1 to paint. Wallpaper just can’t match it for versatility. Ranging from supersaver to sublime, paint’s got the lot; assuming you can get Michelangelo to paint before the skim coat dries.

Scientists at Grenoble’s £4bn Large Hadron Collider believe they have found first signs of the Higgs boson, or ‘God Particle’, so called because it’s thought to hold the nearest thing to an answer to life, the universe and everything – including which colour paint best suits your lounge.

Spokesman for CERN, The European Organisation for Nuclear Research, Fabiola Gianotti tried to play down speculation about the “bumps in data” that could be evidence of the Higgs Boson but admitted “clearly it’s intriguing.”

If scientist’s hopes are fulfilled and their theoretical models are correct, DIYers will be able to know in advance:

• Just how painful hitting their thumb repeatedly with a hammer will be.
• How long until before the average DIYer has a total breakdown trying to hang a door correctly.
• The amount of money you would’ve saved decorating your house if you’d hired professionals in the first place.

More extravagant claims also predict the discovery, if successful, will allow us to know why these unfortunate things happen to DIYers. The odds on favourites so far is surprisingly simple – it’s just that the Higgs boson hates you

Thank goodness for the July edition of House Beautiful and its unquestionably 100% correct colour advice in its July edition. “Bring the tranquil colours of the Mediterranean to your home with shades of deep cobalt… ” it opines on p29.

Must be one too many glasses of rose but the Med was Cobalt last time we swam in it. Our memories associated the Med more with Terracotta and White, but hey ho, there’s always the flawless accuracy of the Interweb to check. But first a bit of Blues music for background – no maybe not, left me feeling suicidal last time. Perhaps it was a particular strain of ‘Cobalt’ Blues caused the meloncholoy.

Ah! Here we are, factmonster.com and blue. ‘Colour of mourning in Iran’ – ooops! – still not quite the Med. ‘Feeling blue is feeling sad’. Well we got that one with an entire music genre thanks.

‘Something out of the blue is something unexpected’, (a bit much like discovering blue is a quintessentially Mediterranean, calming colour, it seems).

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You really couldn’t make this stuff up!

With a whiff of banana skins on the ground and schadenfreude in the air, people were DIYing for all they were worth last month rather than selling their homes in the current market, declared the Moving and Improving Index conducted by YouGov.

Well at least respondents thought it was a good idea. You know, given a push and a shove, 78% considered\ a slap of paint here and a good clean there made more sense than a trip to the local estate agents.

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