SEDI
I’ve invented SEDI. It’s a bit like DIY except that it stands for ‘Somebody Else Do It’. I’m expecting it to catch on in a big way. In the meantime, I’ve been learning lots of things about DIY over the weekend.
· A little knowledge is a dangerous thing
Especially when working out your budget and you don’t really know how your central heating system works. I know much more now and the budget has been neatly defenestrated, as have many of our plans. Unfortunately we’ve already started, and where I say started, I mean ‘destroyed the living room and hallway’.
· There are five reasons that any DIY occurs.
The first four are ‘aesthetic’, (e.g. Putting up wallpaper,) ‘practical’, (e.g. Lowering a ceiling for heating purposes,) ‘maintenance’, (e.g. Rebuilding a broken wall,) and ‘hiding things’, (e.g. painting over dampness to make it looklike there is no dampness). The fifth reason is ‘as some kind of vendetta’. I have no idea what I have done to the previous occupants, but it must have been bad.
I started taking off the polystyrene tiles on the hall ceiling only to discover that they had been glued with megahypersuperglue directly onto woodchip wallpaper. You just don’t choose to do something like that. The only reason I can think of is to piss me off.
I decided that there was nothing for it - we’d have to replace the ceiling. Out came the hammer and down came the ceiling.
· Remember that the reason you attribute to any DIY that has occured in the past is simply an assumption.
I had assumed that the reason for the lowered ceiling was for #2: ‘practical’ reasons, i.e. to assist in the heating of the hallway. Makes sense - it’s a cold hallway next to an outside wall.
As it turned out there was also a bit of #4: ‘hiding’. The plaster ceiling next to the roof slates had crumbled with damp to the point where a large chunk had fallen off and onto the back of the suspended ceiling below. There are cracks, crumbly bits and even a little shattered, discoloured wood all around a large hole.
Our budget was refenestrated, kicked in the ‘nads and redefenestrated. Things are looking expensive.
Oh, and you remember how I said things would go wrong on Friday? Well tumble-drier guy phoned at 4:30pm (!) to say he couldn’t make it. Utter bastard, for the third time.
And the plasterers did three of the four walls and went home. Their boss had apparently failed to tell them to do all four. Now there’s another (different) plasterer coming out tonight to finish the job.
Oh what jolly fun this is. I’m so glad that I started on this journey of DIY discovery.
Add comment January 26th, 2004