I couldn't believe the fiddly cutting done to get these boards to fit the irregular stones on the top of this wall. There are nine of these panels and they are all completely different.

I just thought it worth sharing. It's not my wall and I don't know who did the work.

I wanted to sand my decking down before oiling but didn't want to spend an hour on my hands and knees so I stuck some sand paper to the bottom of an old pair of garden shoes.

It worked a treat!

So a bit of an update from the previous thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/DIYUK/s/Jli8KyVrpf

The poo tank was redundant so I’ve incorporated it into a wildlife pond (hopefully no nasty surprises in the future). Digging the old shit out wasn’t much fun! So now onto phase 2, I’ve lined the pond and I’m looking to cope some of the edges. I’ll leave some parts open to allow pond access for critters. In terms of the coping I plan to use block paving blocks, can I just mix some sand and cement and sit them on top of the liner? Seems a bit overkill to dig some footings out when they’re effectively not going to be under and sort of load.

First photo is inspiration from Southern France. Later three show current structure. The black piece is box section steel.

We have this strange structure affixed to the back of our house. Our garden is small, but south facing. I had the idea of removing the tiles over the verandah section (obviously leaving those over the little extension bit) and turning that area into more of a pergola. I'm aware I'd need to weatherproof the bits that are left exposed, I assume flashing over the edge of remaining tile above the back door, but it's the unknown unknowns here I'm really looking for - what won't I have thought of that might make this more than a simple DIY task?

Hello, not exactly sure if this is the right sub. We had a kitchen fitted last year that cost us £13,000, which is not a small amount of money to us. 2 weeks ago I noticed the panel on the end of the worktop has started to split at the bottom.

The kitchen fitting company that supplied and fitted the kitchen has basically said it's our fault and probably a result of mopping the floor and fobbed us off.

Is this reasonable? We mop every couple of weeks but in my mind i wouldn't expect the counter to split after a little over a year from very moderate cleaning.

Any opinions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Edit: seen a few responses saying this is indeed water ingress. Is the only solution to change the board? I'm miffed that the kitchen fitter would use this material if it's so prone to swelling.

Thanks again.

I have this hole in the garden, it started quite small about 3 years back, I though filling with stone and topping with soil would be a good solution as it was previously stone and soil but it appeared it had just washed away somewhere.

The hole has gotten much bigger over the last year.

Im not sure what would be the best solution to fixing the problem, I've had a few people suggest filling it with post crete but I don't know if that could just hide an underlying problem. The hole when it was at its deepest was probably about 80cm deep.

I'm in the final stages of buying my first home and one of the things I want to do is add a cupboard under the stairs shown in the picture for somewhere to store cleaning stuff and whatever.

Am I right in thinking I can just put up a stud frame, plasterboard and have it skimmed? I've manged to convince myself that walking up the stairs will crack the plaster if the frame is attached to the stairs?

Hi DIYUK! I've got a curtain rail problem in my new build property where all of them see to suffer the same demise as the photo attached where they are coming away from the wall.

Any advice on what I did wrong?

So I’m going to my Mum’s later and since she moved in there has been a Masterlock keysafe attached to the render outside. We’ve tried a few combinations, but realise it’ll take an awfully long time to go through all the permutations, so I think a brute force removal is required.

Ideally I’d do it with minimal damage to the render, and then I can just fit a new one. Are these drill-able or am I going to need to take my BIG hammer?

Edited to add - Solved, I’m going to try the lock picking method, failing that I’ll drill it or wedge something in the hinge.
Thanks to everyone that commented

Just levelled out the floor in the kitchen from where a poorly done extension was done previously.

The space I needed to fill has taken exactly one bag of self levelling compound. I poured every single drop out of the bucket and it's full to the brim on all sides.

Very satisfying.

Just starting re-decorating the attic, I suspect it’s not been touched for about 15 years (since it was built)

Took a shelf down, wall paint was starting the flake, 3 hours later here I am.. 😂😩

Is there an easier / quicker way to get rid of the rest of it? It’s at the point now where what’s left isn’t loose or scrapeable!

Tyy

I removed an old vent at the front of the house that was previously attached to an old Gas heater which I had removed years ago in the hallway.

Used a SDS drill and masonry bit to slowly stitch out the mortar on the old existing bricks. There were three of them in total.

The house is 1930s so sourcing the exact brick was not possible, so asked ChatGPT and it came up with the best option available in Beesley and Fildes, was 5mm shorter in length than the current brick but can't really tell by the eye.

This is my first attempt at something like this. How did I do? Work in IT so no trade experience.

Waiting a few more days for the mortar to dry up before I give it a proper scrub with a stiff brush to remove the dust drilled out from the old mortar.

Hi,

The threads have stripped and now the higher doesn't work. How would I go about fixing this?

Thanks.

There is one red brick in the middle of the wall that I believe is create a bunch of red dust and will eventually dissolve. But there is also a bunch of bricks at the bottom near the paving that have already dissolved.

Any advice is welcome

I have an 8-yard skip in the driveway, and it is a bit high for dumping heavy stuff, so wife put my weight bench in front of the skip so we can step on it.

A guy who drove a white van stopped by, had a look at my skip, and then walked through my driveway to the other side of the skip, close to my front door, saw the bench, and took it and drove off.

I was a bit shocked. My understanding is that everything on the front of the driveway, close to the road is free to grab, am i right?

just checked; it would cost about £130 to get a new weight bench...

We had a soil pipe fitted which now needs boxing in. I’m averagely ok with DIY but need some help figuring out the easiest way to do this. Mainly, where I put the batons to affix the MDF. Any advice? It runs the length of the room and joins with the boxed in down pipe.

We bought this house about a month ago and noticed a really large bump where the previous owners had their sofa. It came up on the survey as concrete reaction to a sulphate attack. No issues as it hasn't effected the integrity of the house.

We noticed it fucking stunk on the bump and I assumed it would just be concrete under the carpet I could smash, lay new mesh down and pour in new concrete to fix the issues. Well we've found these seemingly Victorian tiles and the Mrs has fallen in love with them.

What's the best way to clean them and restore them to look nice? Seems they have the carpet underlay stuck to them, years of shite and grime and possibly paint on them.

I have a bad back, so if someone can come up with anything other than dish soap, a hard brush and elbow grease I'd be mighty greatful.

Edit: I think they'll need sanding but we can't do that at the moment due to them being so unlevel

Hey all, looking for a bit of advice… We had a loft conversion completed around six months ago. The loft company carried out the entire conversion, including the plastering, but they didn’t do the decorating—we decorated it ourselves once everything had dried out and settled.

Over the last few months, we’ve noticed a number of movement cracks appearing, particularly a fairly long vertical crack on the top landing, along with a few gaps around the staircase and in some of the corners. The widest part of the main crack is about 2 mm.

I appreciate that some movement is completely normal with a new loft conversion, but I’m not sure where the line is between “expected settlement” and something the loft company should come back and inspect.

Do you think it’s reasonable to ask the loft company to come back and take a look, or is this just something I’d be expected to repair myself now that we’ve decorated?

I’ve attached a few photos for reference. Thanks in advance for any advice!

Had an electrician come in to chase a channel into the wall to hide a couple of HDMI cables. I have brush plates on either side, and I'm wondering what to use as the duct in between before plastering over. Our initial thought was to just pop a piece of drywall over it, but now I'm thinking that a piece of PVC pipe might work. But is there a standard way to handle this?

Hi all,

Just looking at changing toilet seat but can’t see how to remove the hinges ? The toilet upstairs had the caps that flick off and could unscrew from the top - which was easy to do.

This set seems different and quite flat so can’t get underneath, I have tried using tools to grip and loosen, but it seems completely wedged.

As it’s attached to the wall I don’t have access from underneath and don’t particularly want to go the route of removing the toilet from the wall just to remove the hinge.

Thanks !

Hi all,

I share a driveway with my neighbour (we do 4 days on, 4 days off). The boundary line runs directly down the middle so we both own it.

My local council is to introduce parking restrictions preventing people from parking on the main road and verges. This will make the fight for parking spaces worse and so I want to convert the area to the side of the shared into a permanent area to be used for parking.

It is wide enough for a car to be there alongside the vehicle on the shared driveway but there are some concrete steps that a vehicle would need to go up (each step is about 6 inches tall) and then grass/dirt.

In the meantime whilst we save up money what can I do to make this usable and easy to go up the steps?

I had thought about simply buying some small ramps for each of the steps but wondered if I should consider anything else?

Obvious solution is to just build a driveway…

I am useless at DIY but what do i need to put on my window to fill in the gap here to any leaks?

I’m building a desk that will run the full 340 cm along the wall. I want to avoid legs, so I plan to support the worktop from the three surrounding concrete walls using battens and masonry anchors or similar fixings, like a frame. The walls are concrete, as far as I know, since I've had to use a hammer drill before.

The worktop is a long edge glued oak countertop, the type used for kitchen countertops. It's 27mm thick.

I expect I’ll need some kind of mid-span support to prevent sagging. My main question is what kind of support would be suitable here.

The simplest option would probably be something like a central bracket, as shown in one of the pictures. Another option would be a long, slightly heavier timber support running the length of the desk, provided it won’t itself sag, and can be set back a little towards the wall so it doesn’t hit your knees when you sit at the desk. If anyone knows a good, fairly discreet solution, I’d appreciate it.

I'm not a native English speaker, so I'm sure some of my terminology is wrong...