Talking property

DIY doesn't have to end in an SOS, says ISABEL MORTON

RECENTLY, I found myself shifting from one foot to the other with impatience as I waited in line in my local builders’ suppliers, despairing of the man being served ahead of me.

He debated, deliberated and questioned everything to such an extent that eventually another till had to be opened in order to deal with the queue. However, not before an impatient builder, two places behind me, made a few loud remarks about how there should at least be a separate counter for DIYers and women. “Isn’t there a nice little hardware shop down the road, wouldn’t that do ye?” he grumbled.

“I blame the internet for a lot of it,” said the man behind the counter, when I eventually got served. “Most don’t have a clue what they’re at. They take a stab at DIY but you’ll find they end up calling someone in. It’s just not worth it. Especially now, with tradesmen’s rates cut, it’s cheaper in the long run to get a professional.”

He went on to explain how people buy hammers, drills and other tools, “although most will never even be taken out of their boxes, never mind used,” he laughed.

I laughed along with him, somewhat smug in the knowledge that I’m a “hands-on” kind of girl (!) and pride myself on being one of the very few women who own (and regularly use) their own set of tools.

A few hours later, however, I wasn’t feeling quite so confident.

As two of our three children have long-since left the nest, my plan was to revamp their bedrooms, as it was no longer practical to leave these rooms as shrines to their childhood years. The sleeping arrangements had to be made more flexible, to allow for their frequent visits home, which now included friends, lovers, spouses and offspring.

In addition, as the last one still living chez nous has more overnight guests than the average B&B, I had become a bit resentful of the fact that I ended up changing, washing and ironing the tarpaulin-sized Superking bed linen every time one of his friends “crashed” for the night in our place.

But our family suffers from Cobbler’s children syndrome: we are invariably too busy doing other peoples houses to find time to do anything with our own, and making changes had been put on the long finger.

Determined to get the rooms sorted before the Christmas invasion, I knew I’d have to get on with it myself, as it was certainly nowhere near the top of my husband’s list of priorities.

I decided that I would sell the existing beds and buy “zip and link” beds, a type I’ve used on various jobs over the years, in places such as rental properties and holiday homes, where flexible sleeping arrangements are required. (For those of you still with me, “zip and link” beds are a pair of single beds which zip and link together to create a Superking – 6ft wide – bed.)

When the beds were delivered, I insisted they were left in the hall, as I wanted to rearrange the room before doing the bed swap.

After all, I was well capable of taking the existing bed apart myself. And indeed, it was no problem; screws, bolts, slats, sides, head and end-boards were all disassembled in a flash.

Then it was just a matter of getting it downstairs, which was all very manageable until I got to the mattress, when it became quite a different story.

Puffing, panting and cursing, I swore to myself that in my next life, I would come back as one of those delicate, ladylike women who look aghast at the notion of lifting much more than a bone-china teacup and who would never attempt anything more physically demanding than unloading the dishwasher.

Also in my next incarnation, I would be blessed with patience and the sense not to attempt certain jobs without some assistance.

For now though, I had to concentrate on figuring out a way of extricating myself from beneath the unyielding dead weight of a 6ft wide mattress and manoeuvring its uncontrollable mass around the half-landing and down the stairs without demolishing the entire house.

Going back up the stairs again was entirely out of the question. Having barely avoided crashing through the landing window on the first leg of our descent, the mattress plus yours truly were now wedged in, in a contorted mess, with no choice but to face the considerably longer flight of stairs ahead.

Having failed to control the beast from the rear, I doubted that I would have any better luck if I went before it. And indeed, the final descent was like being engulfed by an avalanche on the way down Mount Everest.

Lying in an undignified heap on the hall floor, I was reminded of the fact that Doing It Yourself doesn’t have to mean doing it entirely on your own.

Isabel Morton is a property consultant