Do it Yourself

As the season of mellow fruitfulness descends upon us I am coming to the end of a job that I started less than wholeheartedly some eight months ago. My flat is gradually starting to feel like my home. When I was first offered it in February I nearly turned it down - on the second floor and so small there was no room to swing a cat (and certainly not to have a cat). But 18 months of housing insecurity had eroded the range of available options. I was no longer holding out for a coach house with a back door to the woods. Moving home every four months had got tiresome. A base with more permanence was needed, whether or not it was ideal. I told myself it was one small step from practising Japanese Buddhism to living Japanese style in 30M2.


The first few months I put the basics in place - but these last weeks, being there more often than before, has driven me to put the finishing touches in, and they are now almost complete. DiY is not really my idea of fun. I got someone to help with the difficult jobs like the laminate and the complicated shelves. But even on small jobs there are so many things that can go wrong. Not wrong in the comic and ultimately tragic sense of Edul Minshi (see Rohinton Mistry's novel blog passim), but more wrong in annoying little ways. Breaking your last hacksaw blade or snapping the drill bit on a Sunday afternoon. Finding that there was a missing component or you haven't got the right length / thread of screw ten minutes before closing time on a Saturday. And this ain't the UK. The shops here shut on Saturday at 6 and don't open again till 9 on Monday. That has good and bad sides. When you are doing DiY you see the bad side.

Last week I had two jobs that I had put off for ages: changing my shower unit (as the old one was attached to the hook by an elastic band that had lost its elasticity) and putting a reading light on the wall by my bed. One job held the prospect of drilling into tiles, the other into heavy duty concrete. "I'll do that next week".

But when I eventually went to start the job the objects just flew into the wall. The light perfectly fitted some existing holes drilled as an anchor support for my hoogslaaper (and saved me even having to fill them later). The shower was slightly more problematic. The stem was about 5mm too short to nest in the old fittings and the old stem was about 2mm thinner than the new one- meaning I couldn't get a purchase on the old stem with the new shower head fitting. So it seemed impossible to get by with the exsting wall fittings. A glimpse into my toolbox gave me a flash of inspiration. There was a packet of rubber washers in the bottom. Not only did I need these to connect the hose at the top and bottom - but they could also be used to take up the slack where the new stem was 5mm too short to nest in the wall fittings. Et voila the stem now fits into existing wall fittings. I didn't have to get my drill out, bust a few drill bits or even disturb the neighbours' Sunday. Ain't it grand when difficult things fall into place? There's just a possibility that I am becomng less impulsive and more insightful - but I wouldn't advertise a complete transformation having taken place.