On my DIY disaster

The cause of the recent spate of DIYness is my wife's breathing problems. A problem for her that is, not me. Obviously.

See, if you have asthma or the overly-complicated acronym COPD, dust, is Bad. In our old place we had wooden flooring throughout for the wife's wheelchair was awful for the carpets. When we moved here and found the joys to be had in carpet we thought "Hmm. Carpet". My feet hadn't felt my own carpet (Note to self: the use of a single word four times in four sentences is a crime. Stop it.) for about five years and just melted in. It wasn't bliss but it was certainly a Tesco's own victoria sponge. So they stayed.

The thing about wooden floors, and is something we realised very quickly with regards to our bedroom, is they show up how much dust gets generated. I can sweep under the bed everyday and get a good handful of dust. It kinda makes you think how much is going into the carpet.

Hence, that fateful Sunday we ripped it up. The floorboards would have been lovely varnished, if not for the paint splatters. I sanded, I scraped, I bought special paint stripper but that paint would not be moved. Wooden flooring was the way to go. In a moment of DIY epiphany I realised the current floorboards would have to be level so I set at them with a hammer and nails.

I did a very good job until I got to the floorboard with pipes beneath it. Oh dear.

What kind of numpty puts pipes directly beneath the floorboards? Everyone apparently. Standard practice my father-in-law claims. Not under the 'boards?

Well, bang, bang, ba-psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss was the noises heard that day followed by a swift 'Oh fuckery'. It took a few seconds for the realisation to kick in though. This was only after the boiler had kicked in, water had seeped up the new nail and on venturing downstairs to watch the ceiling (not in y crackpot house) only to, first hear it then, see it come from inside the walls - aaah cavity walls. It turns out 'gush' is not just a porn term. Towels! Buckets! Fire Brigade. In that order. Oh, and stopcock was in there somewhere, just a little too late to save the wallpaper. Or the plasterboard. Or the ceiling come to that.

So I now have a 'mint' bedroom and a hallway that resembles those only on the choicest council estates.

Today in my quest to finish decorating the bedroom I planed the bottom of our bedroom door. When flying on Concorde you could view the curvature of the Earth and now you can view the curvature of my bedroom door.

PS Nana has just this minute returned. I feel an ode coming on:

Nana!
You're back!
You're black!
But then you were before.