Through my whole experience as a plasterer, I’ve always been lucky to work with people who knew what they were doing. I’ve been shown the right tools to use, the correct ways to prepare a job, and more importantly, I’ve been shown how to put the plaster onto the wall! But what do you do if you're new to plastering or DIY and have no one to show you how to plaster a wall? What happens if you want to try to improve your home but just don’t know where to start? It’s just so expensive to pay a professional to do a job in your own home sometimes. Well, I’m here to say you can do it yourself! You can plaster those walls! In this article, I'll explain how to prepare and plaster a … [Read more...]
15 Essential Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Building Contractor
This is a guest post by Grant Findley. Choosing and hiring the right building contractor for your latest home project is no easy task. The last thing you want to do is hire a cowboy builder or con artist, so you’ll need a way of vetting potential contractors until you’re feeling confident and comfortable with your selection. I’ve been a contractor for many years now, taking over the family business Findley Roofing and Building from my father. Over that time I’ve been asked hundreds of questions, all of which I’ve been happy to answer with complete honesty. Like all contractors should. People who ask me a ton of questions are savvy and feel completely confident they’ve made … [Read more...]
How to Paint Skirting Boards
Painting skirting boards isn’t difficult. But it’s one of those essential jobs most people don’t enjoy because it involves lots of crouching and crawling around the floor. Typically, there are two scenarios - painting new skirting boards or repainting your existing skirting boards. If you’re painting new skirting boards, it’s better to do it before fixing them to the wall. You’ll need to make sure they’re prepared and primed before painting. Here's a list of the tools you'll need to do this job. Some of them are optional depending on your circumstances. Good quality 2" paint brush Paint Primer (optional) Painter's tape Low tack floor protector (optional) … [Read more...]
How to Maintain Timber Decking to Prolong its Life (plus Infographic)
Adding timber decking to your garden can significantly enhance its appearance, but it’s not enough just to throw down a deck and leave it as is thereafter. It requires due care and attention throughout the year so that it doesn’t lose its visual appeal, nor is the timber’s quality compromised. Here’s a few tips and pointers on how to keep your decking looking its finest all year round. With the spring months almost upon us, it will soon be time to wash and seal timber decking. This will entail removing any debris that accumulated over winter, sweeping and cleansing the deck comprehensively, rinsing it with clean water, and sealing and sanding the deck. Once summer arrives, conditions … [Read more...]
How to Make the Most of a Dark Room in Your Home
Having a dark room in your home can leave you reluctant to decorate it. You can’t change it, so what’s the point in trying to make it look nice, right? Wrong! There are some really simple ways to brighten up a dark room and make it look less cave-like. Here are some of the best tips to make the most of a dark room. Take the first step If you’ve been living in your home for a while, you’re probably used to the dark areas. It could be that one room just doesn’t have enough natural light, whilst another has dark furniture which makes it look gloomy. Before you can brighten up a room, you need to walk through it and assess what is causing the darkness – is it the furniture? Is it the walls? Or … [Read more...]
How to Choose the Best Paintbrush for the Job
Struggling to find the right paint colour? Wait until you look at the brushes... When you start preparing to paint a room you’d be forgiven for thinking that the difficult choice is in which colour to go for. In fact, choosing the right tool for the job may completely change the finish and quality of your job. DIYDirect has given us ‘trade secrets’ from a painter-decorator to help you know when to use which type of brush, which materials to use with each paint type, and which spec to choose to give you a professional finish. Matching brush to paint type The first step is to match the paint brush to the paint you’re using. For water based paints use synthetic bristles because … [Read more...]
Can You Convert Your Loft into a Useful Room?
When you need more space than your home currently offers you, there are a few options available to you. You can extend the house and add onto the floor space if you have sufficient garden space and can get planning permission. You can convert a garage, depending on its construction, into a room. Or, you could go for one of the more popular options for gaining extra space - converting the loft. But can a loft be a useful room? And can you convert your loft into a useful room? Let's take a look at some of the requirements for converting a loft into a useful room. Loft assessment To start with, you need to have a loft assessment. You can call in a professional to help with this but … [Read more...]
5 Ideas for a Small DIY Project You Could Do on the Weekend
Come fall, we tend to stick around the house most of the time, enjoying family and friends time or chilling with a cup of hot chocolate or tea and a good book. But those most active among us might get a bit bored, secretly wishing they could do something fun, useful, challenging and engaging. This is what DIY projects are for, isn’t it? There is no greater satisfaction than getting involved in a heartwarming little project and seeing its results with our own eyes. And there is no greater pleasure than letting creativity flood through us while we craft simple yet amazing things with our own hands. Want to spend a rainy weekend to make something that all your loved ones will enjoy? … [Read more...]
7 Home Renovation Blogs to Follow for Tips, Ideas and Inspiration
Taking on a complete home renovation is a monumental task. Blogging about the process is time consuming, but it's also a great way to share/record your progress, inspire others and connect with like-minded people. Here's a list of some interesting home renovation blogs we recently found. Sadly, only some of them are regularly updated, but that doesn't mean the ones that aren't can't provide you with ideas and tips. We're quite happy to expand this list, so please let us know if you run a home renovation blog or you want to nominate your favourite. Simply The Nest Alice and her husband Andre are renovating a huge Victorian semi built in 1875 in South Manchester. They moved into … [Read more...]
How Much Does it Cost to Install a New Bathroom?
Sometimes, you might want to hire a professional tradesman to do a job you're not quite prepared to do yourself. Maybe you don't have enough experience or maybe you don't have the time. One of the jobs you might prefer to hire somebody to do for you is fitting out or remodelling a bathroom. So, how much does a typical bathroom fitting cost? How much should you expect to pay if you hire professional tradesmen to do all or some of the work for you? Let's have look at some examples of the work involved and the prices you might expect to pay. Bear in mind, prices vary around the country, so use this information as a rough guide for calculating costs. The information here relates to … [Read more...]
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