How do you manage DIY and house upkeep?

Addle

I have an old house with a large garden.
There is always something to do and I'm useless at DIY and don't like gardening (though I love my garden).
Other than doing it myself, my only option is to hire people to do jobs for me.
That's ok for necessities, but a luxury I can't afford for stuff like the garden.
How do you manage the upkeep of your home?

lil'bug

I get my hands dirty!
The best way to learn how to do DIY is just get stuck in my partner and I built our own home from scratch and we basically learned as we went. I plastered the sitting room it cost me around €50 if we had to hire someone it would have been close to a grand and do all of the decorating
we lost part of our roof in the storm so we ended up replacing the whole thing, I spent my last week off of work slating a roof.

Addle

Wow - plastering and roofing! Fair play to you.
I can't even manage to go up a ladder.
I'd consider that big stuff. It wouldn't even occur to me to try to do that myself.

I need ivy removed from walls and some sockets fixed.
They don't seem like big enough jobs to get someone in, but if I leave them any longer, they'll get out of hand.

lil'bug

sockets can be dodgy if you have no experience I'd leave that one to the pros
I'd try and take the ivy down myself the sooner the better before it damages the brickwork

pwurple

Don't do the sockets.

Ivy is not too bad, i've been doing that on and off for the last few weeks (with a baby in a sling, in the rain).
-Take a clippers and just clip off all the leaves around the base so you can see the branches of it.
-Cut through where it connects to the roots.
-Use the clippers to prise a little bit of it off the wall, grab it with your (gloved) hands, and pull it off!

It leaves little tendrils and suckers on the brickwork though, which are a dose to remove. I've tried and failed with powerhosing... Hiring a blowtorch for 18euro during the week to try that.

sullivlo

I do the stuff that needs to be done to the best of my ability. If I can't do it I ask a friend. If they can't, we call the pros. But the basics I can do.

I love building furniture. If you ever need a hand give me a shout. It's my favourite thing to do.

Addle

I def wouldn't go near anything electrical.
I manage the ivy I can reach from the ground, and it's the boston ivy so it's easy enough to pull down, but some of it's creeping over gutter onto the roof and starting to clog my drains.
It looks lovely, especially in autumn, but is hard keep.
Will just have to hire a gardener/handy man.

pwurple

Oh boston ivy is different... That's a much simpler one, no blowtorch required! Do you have a good ladder? It's a once a year clip in a straight line about 2 ft down from the gutters. It's so beautiful, shame to pull that down.

If heights bother you, try to get a platform ladder, or swap the job?

I sometimes trade jobs like that with buddies. I have no problem doing anything garden related or painting. Heavy lifting i can't do, so I swap those jobs. I do their weeding or clip their hedge, if they move some boulders or furniture.

Good neighbours and family are handy for that too, my uncle has a great platform ladder, it rolls! I bake him a cake and borrow the nice safe ladder for an afternoon.

Rosy Posy

Both myself and my oh are atrociously impractical people. I actually only recently learned to change a lightbulb! My oh called round to my student gaf and one of the girls and myself were cooking by candlelight because the lights weren't working- it hadn't occurred to either of us that the bulb might be gone!

Our garden is massive so one part we've just allowed to go wild and sowed some wild flowers, the other part we had a friend recommend a lot of filler low maintenance plants- grasses and shrubs and the like- and we get a friends teenaged son to mow the lawn. A reliable teenager is invaluable!

My oh muddles through basic DIY stuff with varying results but for the rest we have a friend who is a builder who does it for us. My oh is a GP and does free house calls for them when they're sick so it works out well.

Addle

pwurple wrote: »

Oh boston ivy is different... That's a much simpler one, no blowtorch required! Do you have a good ladder? It's a once a year clip in a straight line about 2 ft down from the gutters. It's so beautiful, shame to pull that down.

If heights bother you, try to get a platform ladder, or swap the job?

I sometimes trade jobs like that with buddies. I have no problem doing anything garden related or painting. Heavy lifting i can't do, so I swap those jobs. I do their weeding or clip their hedge, if they move some boulders or furniture.

Good neighbours and family are handy for that too, my uncle has a great platform ladder, it rolls! I bake him a cake and borrow the nice safe ladder for an afternoon.

That ladder looks like a great job, but i'd have nowhere to keep it transport it. I have a tall enough step ladder, but have an awful fear of falling.

I live alone, have no fella, no practical family members around, and just no one I can ask/swap with.

A hired handy man is my only option really.

pwurple

Addle wrote: »

That ladder looks like a great job, but i'd have nowhere to keep it transport it. I have a tall enough step ladder, but have an awful fear of falling.

I live alone, have no fella, no practical family members around, and just no one I can ask/swap with.

A hired handy man is my only option really.

Guess so! It's still all about trade... You're trading your work hours for theirs. I have cleaners come in twice a month to clean the oven and other stuff. I justify it by taking on extra where I can at work, try to make any bonus cover it.

We all have our strengths and stuff we hate to do. And we all have limited time and resources. I despise ironing and oven cleaning! It still has to be done, so i have to pay someone else to do it, while I go rip ivy off a shed.

meeeeh

I don't. I painted a room once.

I hate gardening so OH was told he can do whatever he wants with the garden as long as he takes care of it. Oh is actually very good at diy but he is also working long hours. So I do almost all day to day child careing, cleaning and cooking and he does all other jobs around the house usually at weekends. Apparently we are sticking a fire pit at the back of the garden with swing benches around it. Considering the lovely weather in Ireland I am sure we'll get great use out of it.

fiona-f

For maintenance type jobs like the garden, it's all about consistent baby steps - I pull any dandeloins I see in my front garden, just with my bare hands, every single time I walk into my house, rather than do a big two-hour weeding session once in a blue moon. It's now such a habit that I do it automatically and garden is more-or-less weed free. Not perfect but good enough for my standards. Similarly, I summer, I water my container plants every morning while waiting for the kettle to boil for morning coffee. So for ongoing jobs, try to break them down into baby steps and make a routine and then a habit out of it. If you introduce one new habit at a time and be super persistent about it, you'll be amazed at the difference it makes.

For diy, I find youtube videos a great way to learn. I would never tackle anything electrical beyond changing plugs or bulbs, and never ever go near anything connected to the gas but lots of other jobs can be learned online. Plus you can always call the pros after you have given it a go and failed yourself, if needs be.

Heavy lifting etc is wherre it gets tricky if you live on your own. Bar a coalition of willing friends, family or neighbours, then I guess you just need that handyman. But you'd be surprised too at how willing people are to help if you just ask them (not taking advantage obviously but even people like a friend's boyfriend might be happy to help out in return for a big takeaway and beer, or a homecooked dinner -a huge stereotype but many men love doing anything involving destruction so ripping up old carpet or taking down an old fence, etc. So don't be too shy either in asking.