Workmanship

I am not sure when I first became interested in DIY (do it yourself), though I do recall that my father was an avid gardener, and also used to do some basic tasks around the house. My early years were spent either sharing a house with my grandparents, or in rented accommodation, so my family didn't own a house until 1963, when I was 10, and as it was a new build it didn't need much doing to it, though my dad did build me a wardrobe in my bedroom, on the plinth that jutted into my bedroom to give headroom for the stairs!
I am not sure of the exact dates but I know at some stage he bought the Reader's Digest Do-it-yourself manual, which as well as hints and tips for DIY-ers, also had a section on simple projects for the home. I was an avid reader so used to dip into this from time to time, and enjoyed the step-by-step instructions the massive book contained. Years later I bought one for myself, amongst other DIY books, and it became my "bible" for any work I wanted to do. Back then we did not have the luxury of the internet, and endless "how-to" (and "how-not-to"!!) videos on YouTube, nor numerous sites that gave instructions how to do basic tasks around the home, so we had to rely on books if we wanted to do the work ourselves.
Back then, too, specialist tools were not available to the home handyman, or the price was so prohibitive that it was not worth buying something that might only be used for one job. Now the market is flooded with cheap imports (dare I say, mainly from China) and I, along with many others, had a pretty well equipped toolbox, not the best quality, and probably not good enough if you were a serious tradesman, but adequate for occasional basic projects. There are now, at least in the UK, a myriad of Hire Shops, where you can rent specialist equipment for those occasions when your own tools are inadequate. For example, I have in the past hired a floor sander to smooth off old parquet flooring.
But I am getting ahead of myself. By 1976 (when I was 23) I still hadn't really done any DIY, but during a study break from work, when I stayed with some friends near Pietermaritzburg, in South Africa, I helped out with the construction of a concrete shower enclosure in their bathroom. I worked on some of the pipework, and a little of the concreting, and seemed to do OK at it.
Upon my return to the UK in 1978 I joined the family grocery business, and in 1979 we decided to open a bakery in the adjoining property (which we owned but had previously rented to a hairdresser). To convert the shop we needed quite a bit of work to be done, so called in a local builder, who we knew, for a quotation. We needed two sinks installing, a water heater, suitable flooring laying (over floorboards), a 3 metre long work bench with shelving beneath, walls painting, and shelving built in a store-room. He came in took a load of measurements and the following day called back with his quotation - £10,000!! This was more than double the price we were expecting, and in 1979 was very expensive for a fairly simple job for a qualified builder. We got the impression he didn't really want such a small (for him) job, as he was in much demand for house building, so was "trying it on". We rejected his quote and turned to the newspaper adverts, where we came across a man offering his services for "renovations and small building projects", so gave him a call (remember no internet back in those days!). He again took some measurements, and made some notes, but before leaving told us "this job is really too big for me"!
At this stage I decided I would try and do most of the work myself. We needed to have three-phase power installed by the Electricity Board, and they offered to install the water heater (over the sink) at the same time, for little more than the cost of the heater - we just had to chisel out an entry hole for the 3-phase cabling under the exterior wall (which was not as easy as it sounds as the house was over 100 years old and there was a lot of very hard flint to chisel through) and the rest of the installation was free!
(Full details about the bakery are in a separate post Opening a bakery)
We got a company to lay industrial grade flooring over the floorboards, which again was fairly cheap, and I started sourcing the other materials we would need. I bought a pair of stainless steel single drainer sinks (left and right) from a local DIY store, which were on clearance and cost £25 for the pair! I drew up plans for the workbench and calculated how much timber I needed and went to a local timber merchant. When he saw the quantities he asked what it was for, and then offered me 35% trade discount! He also gave me a lot of advice about how to go about doing the job, and suggested some alternatives to those I was planning to use, in all saving me a lot of money.
We painted the walls ourselves, using gloss on the walls in the main bakery area and emulsion on the ceiling, and in the "display" area, and this was a big mistake! The levels of condensation produced by the heat and steam in the bakery soon produced mould spores, and no amount of cleaning would prevent this. Through a trade publication we contacted a specialist paint company, and bought two different types of very expensive specialist paint, but after applying these we never had the problems again!
I also plumbed in the two sinks, having first built a bench to hold them, with shelves underneath, and there were no leaks!
My dad already owned an electric drill, screwdrivers and chisels, and we did buy a mitre joint set, though this was used with hand saws to create all the joints, and by the end of the work I had blisters from screwing the hundreds of countersunk screws manually (realised as I neared the end that we could have bought a cordless screwdriver!)!
The finished product looked amazing, if I say so myself, and soon we were ready to start baking. Aside from my labour cost - I did most of it myself as my dad was working in the grocery shop next door - the total cost of all the materials, the water heater, flooring, paint, etc. came to under £2500, and took under a month to complete. The work had been challenging, though early on I realised that nothing had really been beyond my abilities, and this new-found confidence led me to attempt other projects in the future. Previously I hadn't considered myself to be very adept at manual tasks like this, but as the work progressed I soon came to the realisation that often you restrict yourself in what you do, or even attempt, by not even trying to challenge your abilities!
With my new-found confidence over the years I attempted even more challenging projects, the most satisfying one being installing an en-suite bathroom! We lived in a Dormer Bungalow (a bungalow that has had a second storey added in the eaves) and the bathroom was downstairs with three bedrooms upstairs (and a fourth downstairs which we converted into a workroom for my wife who ran a cake making business from home). 
The master bedroom was large enough to accommodate a good-sized bathroom, but we didn't have the money for the conversion, though over several years we bought bits and pieces for it when we found them on offer, so matching sink and toilet, shower enclosure, and even tiles were bought and stored away. Finally we decided we had saved enough to make a start, but the big concern was how to get rid of the waste. Our bedroom had a sink in it already in the corner, which had a drain pipe, but this was only around 5cm, so unsuitable for a toilet. We were unsure how to proceed so realised that here we needed expert advice so called in a plumber, with the intention that he would do the plumbing work for us. He wanted to cut channels in the joists to run the waste pipes, and was talking of having to install reinforcements (as the joists were load bearing!) and his quote, just for the plumbing work was more than our total budget! We declined the offer!
Just through the wall from where the en-suite was to be there was a small loft space (housing our central heating header tank also), though it had very restricted headroom, meaning it was more a crawl space, and this was where the electrics were going to come from, as well as where the new water pipes were going to be run. On the outside wall of the house adjacent to this was the vent pipe from the domestic sewer, and this was a 20mm pipe, and during my research I had read that is was perfectly acceptable to join a toilet waste into this, so a new plan started forming - connect the shower and sink to the old sink waste, but the toilet waste would run through the crawl space and into the vent pipe - the biggest worry being whether there would be sufficient "fall" for the waste to run away. The measurements indicated it was just about adequate - without making any further structural alterations - so we went for it!
I am a planner - which means that before undertaking any project I make lots of drawings, take copious measurements, and try to consider all eventualities, and then get all the materials in before I start, so I don't find myself in the embarrassing situation of, say, having cut the electric off and not have the necessary materials to reconnect, and it being Sunday with the shops closed! My wife found that a bit frustrating, as she wanted to jump in and get started, but over the years realised that my way was ultimately quicker and more efficient, as once started we could just crack on until the job was finished! She was also a keen DIY-er so we did much of the work together - she was a dab hand at tiling - and in the end completed it all ourselves, including plumbing and electrical work (nowadays you have to be a certified electrician to do electrics, but since my handiwork is still going strong around 25 years later it bears testament to the workmanship!), and came in well within budget, and only one or two minor problems along the way. One of these was a leaking joint, which took many attempts to resolve, and the second - well, I had a rush of blood to the head while installing the electrics! We were installing three wall lights, as well as an electric shower which got its own wiring and a new circuit breaker, and the idea was that two lights would be linked and the third - over the sink - independent. I planned all the wiring and started running it to the fittings and the switches - to the fittings through the stud wall behind, and to the switches hidden under the coving we were going to attack between wall and ceiling. So I ran the wires to all the locations they were needed, and then we fixed the coving - leaving the electrics to be completed later. When I came to connect the wiring to the switches I had my "moment" - despite all my careful planning beforehand I suddenly though that I could bypass one of the wires I had laid, so removed it and connected the rest up - and flicked the switch! The lights came on - the single one worked fine, but the two linked ones? They came on nice and bright, but when you went to switch them off they just went dim! I realised immediately that I did, after all, need the second wire, which I had pulled out from under the coving, as per my original drawing! Fortunately I managed to replace the wire with the only "damage" being a small square cut into the outside (bedroom-side) stud wall to feed the wire back through, and this was then taped back in place, and wallpapered over (we had not yet done that final piece of the project), and you would never have known there had been a problem!
Now that I am getting older, so am not as physically able as I once was I tend to employ local "craftsmen" to do jobs for me - like exterior house painting, floor tiling, etc. but here in rural Brazil it is very frustrating since most "tradesmen" have no formal training or experience, and the quality of their workmanship leaves a lot to be desired. Paint splashes everywhere - on the floor tiles, across light switches - and even roller strokes on the ceiling where they have over-run, and no attempt to clean up. Irregular gaps between tiles, poorly applied grout, and I have twice had to show "experts" how to measure and cut edge tiles. In many cases, too, I have had to supply the tools as well as the materials - here a "quotation" is just for the labour, you are given a list of what materials are needed, and usually end up with plenty of spares for the next project! In almost all cases I have more experience, and certainly more skill at the work I am paying for, and spend a lot of time "showing " them the right way to do it, but no longer the physical capability, and outdoors no tolerance to the heat and sun.
I am currently waiting for my "man" to finish repainting my two wrought-iron (not as fancy as that sounds!) gates - I supplied him with a wire brush, sandpaper (for metal), paintbrushes, thinners, primer and enamel paint. It took him 3 days - working around 2 hours a day - to prepare and prime the gates, then I didn't see him for 4 days. He then appeared asking if I had any more work for him - so I pointed out the gates needed painting as he had only primed them (he didn't seem to realise that "primer" was an undercoat!), so he spent 2 more hours painting one of the gates - and then disappeared again! It is now 8 days later and he still hasn't returned to top-coat the other gate! Here you have to take what you can get - or suck it up and do it all yourself!