Did you buy the parts at any of the Cleveland area computer shows? Back in the 1990s when computers were still a thing, the shows had many exotic Russian women at the booths. And attended by hundreds of drooling geeky boys. Not me, of course.
I will never paint inside a house again. It is thankless and you remember all the booboos. If you pay someone you leave in the morning and come back to freshly painted walls. It’s so nice to just sit back and enjoy it. Yep, never again. And I am damn good at it, IISSM.
ETA and, oh yeah, the mural thing I painted on a brick wall. Bad juju.
Plumbing and electrical: I can and have done basic stuff like change out electrical outlets or replacing a ceiling fan or kitchen faucet, but anything requiring more than basic hand tools, I’ll let a professional handle. Way too much can go wrong really fast and I don’t know enough to be able to recover from a mistake.
Car maintenance: if it can’t be done without raising the car at all, besides changing a tire, I’ll let a professional mechanic do it. They have the knowledge and equipment to do it quickly and safely, and I have a good, honest one that I trust.
Drywall and skim coating, especially on the ceiling. I’m glad to have gone through the experience, but I’ll gladly pay to have it done next time. I tackled the jobs because the quotes seemed high to me, but now having done it, the prices seem reasonable for the amount of effort. If you’ve never done large-scale drywall work, you don’t realize how difficult it can be to get a smooth, flat surface–especially as a newbie. The experts can trowel on a near-perfect finish, but a newbie will have a lot of defects to fix up and that takes forever. And if you don’t get it right, you often don’t see the goofs until after it’s been painted.
Many years ago I constructed a 4 layer tall circular tree ring about 12 feet in diameter out of brick and mortar. My Dad did stuff like this when I was growing up and he made it look easy. When I finished the ring looked good: flat top, good mortar joints, etc. I didn’t spend too much time doing it and it didn’t cost much.
Even though happy with the job, I decided I was lucky it turned out well and have hired out masonry work since then.
I decided to replace the faucet in the sink of our half bath. It’s a narrow room and the opening under the counter top is cut in half by a piece of wood so there’s less than a foot and a half to squeeze through. I managed it once and spent half an hour trying to undo the rusted on bolts. I finally gave up and decided to try again later. After about two weeks of procrastination I decided I was too old to crawl back under there. I felt even better about my choice when it took the plumber 45 minutes to replace the faucet. Money well spent.
I’m doing this right now. The part I don’t care for most is having to move the furniture away from the walls.
I draw the line at ceilings (we have cathedral ceilings in several rooms, plus skylights) and most exterior painting, though. I’ll hire someone to do that.
Things I will never do again: making my own phyllo or puff pastry. The frozen stuff at the store tastes just as good and works just fine.
Many years ago, when I was single, I decided to teach myself how to cook. For some unfathomable reason I decided to begin by making gnocchi. Many, many hours later I produced flavorless, inedible dough lumps.
My list is long, primarily because doing it myself to save dollars is not the necessity it once was:
Done 'em, won’t do 'em again:
[ul]
[li]Virtually all car repair/maintenance[/li][li]Major home remodeling jobs[/li][li]Installing blow-in insulation[/li][li]Any sort of concrete/brick work[/li][li]Privacy fence installation[/li][li]Entry door removal and installation[/li][li]Hot water tank installation[/li][li]Running new electrical circuits[/li][li]Anything involving walking around on a roof[/li][/ul]
mmm
Had to go back a ways to find a DIY project I’ll never do again, so here goes: Ripping out old carpet. The first house I bought after I graduated from college was from an elderly woman, and in addition to the bathroom being carpeted :rolleyes: , the rest of the house had wall-to-wall carpeting in lovely burnt orange. I tore that out and did the best I could to remove all the underpads, and by the time I was done with that, I hired someone to refinish the floors after I discovered that the sander weighed 90 pounds.
I decided to shut off the main water valve once years ago as we were leaving for a week’s vacation. It was my last task before locking the door. The family was already in the car, waiting for me.