apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Probably the biggest DIY mistake I've ever seen was when my dad decided to paint the tin roof himself. And of course, slipped on wet paint, went flying off the side, and just missed landing on the lawnmower. (He was okay... after a nice hospital stay.)

If it's dangerous, get a professional! You're not saving money if you end up in the hospital. And traumatize your kids on the way. Yeesh.

I read too much Dwell magazine and painted a "mid century modern" brick house a tone on tone dark grey. It was handsome, but it really destroyed the vintage look of the street. I felt so guilty I repainted immediately.

My biggest DIY mistake was probably the paint colour I chose for my room - I love it, but it's very dark. Wonderful for sleeping, but makes it feel a little gloomy the rest of the time.

When I was a teenager, I started painting a trompe l'oeil faux marble on my bedroom ceiling. When my dad was walking down the stairs one day, he looked up and saw it--and thought that my room had some horrible, major water damage going on in it.

He bought me some off white paint to paint over it right away.

What container do folks use to mix their multiple cans of paint to acheive a uniform color?

Another paint mistake here--college era, my roommate and I had the idea it would be "funky" to paint the living room walls bright red. That wasn't the worst part....while we were waiting for the coats on the walls to dry, we were seized with the idea to also paint the ceiling red. It was godawful.

Jenny B: plastic 2-gallon and 5-gallon buckets with lids are readily available at most hardware stores.

Trying to strip our woodwork. We ended up stripping the varnish off the floors, nearly poisoning the cats, and ended up painting anyway when it was discovered that various pieces of the wood had been replaced over the years, all different species!

kaete - i almost did the same thing as your dad once! i was painting a tin roof as part of a volunteer project, stepped on the paint, went sliding down the roof - thankfully one of the other volunteers caught my hand before i slid off! i was definitely a bit shaken up, though!

thankfully, none of my own diy projects have been disastrous (yet?). even if results aren't absolutely perfect, oh well. it's trial and error. i guess the worst i can say was painting a mirror frame w/ black paint...where the frame meets the mirror isn't the cleanest line...but no biggie! i think i've made worse mistakes paying a contractor money to do a less than perfect job :)

Using the wrong grade of sandpaper to remove paint from a door before staining it--MUST USE COARSE SANDPAPER! If you get up close you can see the horrible scratches. But, hey...I rent.

While trying to replace a faucet, I had to disconnect the water lines. Thought I did but when water started GUSHING everywhere I sensed I might have missed a step somewhere. I didn't know where the main shut off for the townhouse was. (Lesson learned - know where the main shut off is before you start any such project). I used every towel, rag, beach towel, and even blankets to soak up the water.

Not using primer with red paint.

We painted one tiny wall behind our stove which the previous tenants had painted bright orange. Figuring orange was close enough to red that we would not need a primer, we went ahead. 8 coats later, it was as close to completely red as it was going to get. Never again.

Actually, I JUST finished this yesterday. I painted my entire living room/dinning room/hallways (it's an apartment and the walls all run together, it's a small space! It looks good I swear!) but I needed two gallons and the second gallon had some white paint around the rim and didn't notice it until I poured it into the pan. I figured it wasn't that much white paint and wouldn't be a big deal. Now that I'm done, there is a part of my wall that is slightly lighter and looks like it's perpetually drying. I'm a little bummed because I've painted a billion times and every time I do it, by the end I'm so tired I'm throwing the paint on the walls. This time I stretched it out the entire weekend to ensure I'd done an awesome job. Oh, well...

Back in the dark days, when faux painting was big Pottery Barn carried a line of Jocasta Innes paints. I painted my bedroom wall "Persian Creme" which was pretty, but then sponged over it with this Jocast Innes stuff in a mellow peachy color. Only I didn't know to paint a swatch first to see how the light interacts with the colors, and even if I had, I was less patient back then. It looked nice with the morning light. And it looked nice and cozy at night, when the bedside lamps were on. But when the mid-afternoon sun shifted away from our north facing window, the natural light went bluish, and all that warm creme and peach suddenly took on a nasty hypothermic fleshy look. Ugh. Stayed that way for 14 years though. Last summer we repainted with some nice flat Fresh Aire "Of the Earth" and there is no amount of light, or lack thereof that can make that lovely smokey taupe look bad.

I spaced on a second gallon and now my living room has two different glosses (eggshell and semi, IIRC). Can't really tell, though. Also, there are some thin spots from when I painted the ceiling, but ceilings are such a pain that I just left it.

Latex over oil. Scraping walls is fun.

I've done many of those above and most sympathize with the failure to do an undercoat when applying a bright color. I still have a an orange see through section on my ceiling after six coats and will end up just painting over it to match the rest of the house one day.

But my worst was applying the first coat of Estapol (a gloss timber floor sealer) to my new floors at about 5PM, and then going to the pub to wait for them to dry enough for the second coat.

When I eventually got back many hours later than I intended, I decided to finish the job anyway. The result was footsteps everywhere, a freaked out cat stuck in the middle of the floor, hair, fluff, and much laughter from the friend who observed it all.

Don't drink and DIY.

Took the cheap option and used regular masking tape instead of actual painter's tape. Took a layer off the cornicing and the raw wood is showing through now. Anyway, I fail at painting in a straight line at any rate, and there's smudges of yellow outside the taped bit as well - AND, where I didn't put the paint on straight, bits of purple around the yellow!

After getting some advice from AT, I decided that I do have color phobias. I spend 2 weeks convincing by husband that painting our HUGEEE bedroom a blue/grey was a good idea. A week later the room was done. I hated it! Before the tape came down I spend another week repainting it. It looks great now ...in its original white version. Thanks AT ;) Its funny how you don't know what you want until you realize what you don't want.

Various attempts at faux finish painting. All were atrocious. Fortunately it was all on very cheap furniture.

Your story made me laugh out loud, Jenny B.

The kitchen ceiling in my rental had two cracks in it two years ago, one quite severe and the other, nothing to worry about. The damage as I understand it was prior and they were just recracking probably due to improper repair before I moved in. Management sent someone over to fix the cracks, but he left the minor (long but the pieces still matched and the area was dry) one to time.

Last fall, that crack started to part and part and one side of the crack sagged down, and I put off calling in to have it fixed for various reasons. I taped it up with packing tape for a while, well that dries out and unsticks. Thanksgiving was coming (which means my parents come to my place for dinner) and, having paid attention to the guy who fixed the other crack two years ago, and being somewhat handy at these things, as well as researching it online, I thought I could manage this myself.

NOOOOOOOOOOO.

First of all, it's plaster. Secondly, my procrastination caused the piece to dry in its warped state and the sides would no longer match without cracking off a sizable piece of the ceiling. Third of all, it's not drywall (see 1). My drill was heavy and powerful, stripped a lot of the holes with screws, some of them too short now to reach a stud. The wrong kind of screws? Probably, but the other guy didn't repair it using anything special. I bought self-stick mesh tape (it doesn't). If I never see another bucket of joint compound in my life, it will be too soon. And the crumbling pieces of plaster that wouldn't fit back in their spaces without becoming even smaller. The metal mesh patches. The gaps that are made completely of putty. The mesh tape texture I can still see on the outside edges of the repair zone. Never mind the sanding! Horrible, tedious and ineffective. Managed to match the paint brand and color to a bucket left in a utility area of the building (as well as a piece of broken plaster to confirm) - but it's lighter than the rest of the ceiling. So basically I have kind of a stalactite in my kitchen, which makes it a project left to do, and various obstacles to fixing what I made arguably worse.

Advice: Don't wait to call your landlord when something needs to be repaired.

Does this count: while just now contemplating a DIY, and reading this post, I spilled coffee all over my laptop whose screen now has a weird liquid stain floating behind the screen... :-(

sfdoddsy: You just made me laugh out loud. The image of your (poor) cat stuck to the floor will be with me for ever.

I am really amazed at how many people who are renting attempt to fix major stuff in their places. I have had absentee landlords, for sure, and am fortunate I don't have on currently, but seriously, trying to fix the ceiling?? Seems like more trouble than it is worth. Sorry to hear about your mess.

Some people might argue with me, but I have learned to never, EVER use masking tape to tape of baseboards, etc with painting. EVen with masking tape, I still manage to get paint on whatever I'm trying to paint. Blue painters tape, on the other hand, always works perfectly for me.

Also, I have learned to remove tape while my walls are still wet. Whenever I wait for them to dry, the tape doesn't come off nicely and some gets stuck the walls (but maybe that is always because I was using masking tape!)

I got the great idea to paint my tiny bathroom orange -- "Home Depot" orange. The bathroom GLOWED. I cannot tell you how awful a person can look in the mirror when the room is glowing orange. It was nearly impossible to put on makeup, because everything looked freaky. After that I decided to go with pale, ice blue, which looks wonderful . . . after many, many coats of paint.

Question for everyone who knows the difference between painter's tape and masking tape: I bought green painters tape, and it wasn't any better than masking tape. It took the paint underneath with it when I removed it, and the new color bled underneath. What was I doing wrong? And is blue painter's tape different?

My few DIY projects are always disastrous, but the worst was when I decided to paint the formica kitchen counters. I sanded and primed, and primed, and primed...and didn't notice when the cat (who had been put in the bedroom) managed to escape...until she jumped onto one of the freshly primed counters. Then I had to learn about removing paint from a cat. Not fun.

caiti - I admit it's my fault, that I had run out of time (procrastinated) before Thanksgiving (which is - the mess, the sanding, the second coat, more sanding, and then recleaning everything in the kitchen - the landlord's repair person would not have been able to hurry or work over the weekend), and it's the kind of project that once you start and it's going badly, and it's too late to change course, admit you screwed up, and parents are coming in less than a week, you .... just keep going until it's good enough. Anyone else ever do that? The best part is nobody told me how bad a job they did, 'cause I didn't want to admit I did it. I will have to have it repaired to look better and match the rest of my funky old plaster ceiling when I can afford to hire someone. I still don't want my landlord to find out. I feel like I've learned a valuable lesson (several actually) that's nobody else's business (except AT's) as long as I can eventually make it ok.

Sounds like curious cats and cutting corners is the cause of many DIY disasters:)

For me, I think changing my mind mid-project causes the most DIY stress for me. My husband and I has a backsplash tiles installed (expensive three-tone porcelin penny rounds). But pre-grout decided we didn't like it (way to busy) and tore the whole thing down (ouch, not easy). We ended up putting up cheap, white subway tile instead. Everyone loves the subway tile. Lesson: Sometimes simpler and cheaper is better...

My blunders:

1) Waiting for paint to dry completely before removing painter's tape from a painted surface. Whee, it's like a Biore nose strip but with paint!
2) Not delinting the paint roller before painting, resulting in an unintentional texturing on the wall. (I still don't know how to do that right).

My grandfather was a professional house painter. One trick when running out of paint is to make sure that you cover the whole wall from the same can. Start the next can on another wall. Light is going to be different on each wall and noone will notice the difference.

My worst DIY?
Mistakingly using glossy paint for touch ups on a satin wall?
Letting my husband put up crown or cut the baseboards?
Using the same color in the kitchen (where it looks grey) as the living room?
Following my Dad's advice and painting the paneling in stripes of green? I finally found a paint sheild.

rocky

i'm already getting tired of the brick red i painted in the tv room - and i only did it in October. the main reason is that i now can't find colours for the two rooms that flow from each side of this that will go with the brick red...

*sigh*

I tried to hang up my own curtains. 3 months and a couple thousand dollars later, my back is still out. Most expensive curtains and rods purchased at Target. Ever.

I designed and built a coffee table. I wanted something simple so I bought a slab of walnut cut to the right size. Problem was, the walnut wasnt planed or sanded properly (and I don't happen to have a planer in my apartment, naturally) Nor did I have a router to bevel the underside edges.

I spent 3 weeks with a pocket knife and a hand rasp shaping and smoothing, and then another week of hand sanding. Then I had to shape some pieces of oak so the board wouldnt warp (the knife was pretty dull by then) For legs I bought some screw in tapered legs from the hardware store and painted them black.

The most hilarious thing was that I had done all the design work myself - just simple slab, bevelled edge, with tapered legs. Then a friend showed me a Paul McCobb coffee table, which is EXACTLY the same thing. I cried about all the work I'd done and laughed about the absurdity of it all.

While covering up a previous owners bad paint job, I made it worse by getting paint on the concrete & terracotta ceiling. The wall is curved also, and I was planning on demoing it in the future to rebuild a straight wall...If I do that, you will always see a curved line of paint on the ceiling.

casafroggy: to delint your roller, simply rinse it with water. let dry completely and then paint! also, make sure you are using a small nap roller for interior walls, the smaller the better for a gloss finish.

nkr707: that's it? So many hours on Youtube wasted! Thanks for the enlightenment.

casafroggy: You could also press masking tape on the roller to de-lint it.

I recently repainted my bedroom walls, ceiling and trim and didn't notice the gobs of gooey paint that developed between the ceiling and the small gap in the picture rail near the ceiling.

They are driving me crazy - gloopy small stalactites of white paint. Ugh.

I can't figure out how to fix them without having to completely remove the picture rail, sand, and repaint.

I tried using a scraper in between the rail and the ceiling but it just took off all the paint.

So for now I'm doing what I do best: trying to ignore looking at them.

Pumpkin orange guest bathroom. The combination of dark trim and white toilet really just reminds me of halloween. Still trying to figure out what color.

Where do I start?

Replaced faucet handles -- punctured water lines in handles TWICE.

Stripped wallpaper in bathroom -- ended up in ER with a broken ankle.

Repainting glass-doored bookcase: broke glass, sliced the back of my hand open. Ended up in ER again.

Took toilet tank off to paint bathroom, had to call my dad & uncle to put the tank back on when my attempt resulted in water gushing all over the floor.

Set coffee carafe on fire while attempting to repaint kitchen cabinets.

EVERYTHING is hired out now.

This doesn't count as DIY, but ...

the first two years after I bought my house, I ended up at the doctor's office with bursitis after raking leaves on my 1/4 acre lot. The second year, my doctor screamed, "For God's sake, get a leaf blower!"

I got an electric one and haven't had a cortisone shot since.

LOL! I love them all!

I decided I was going to paint the outside of our new house turquoise. I loved it... on the colour card. On the test panel on the house it looked awful! Flouro and awful! My partners suggestion was highway worker orange instead... apparently we can't choose colours to save our lives.

I recently moved into a 17th century building. The idea of living in an old space didn't faze me a bit as I've always lived in old places in the U.S. I thought "Oh, those plaster walls don't scare me one bit!" Note to self: 1920s and 1900s are NOT 17th century.

There is not a SINGLE 90 degree angle (or anything even remotely like one) in this entire space - even the more modern additions seem to slide and swerve in concert with the older walls, floors and ceilings.

Of course, I didn't discover this until I tried putting in some pull out shelves on drawer rails. After all the adjusting and shimming I had to do to make them work, they look like I hired a kindergarten class to come over and play with my drill and some old lumber. *Sigh*

Also, while exposed beams look really cool, painting them or around them takes HOURS. I painted in October and my neck is still crooked.

I also once painted a bathroom bright orange. It is true it makes everyone look awful. Awful.

I think the favourite DIY mistake that I ever heard came from my friend Jenna, whose brother once accidentally nailed his own hand to the wall with a nailgun.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER paint a kitchen oven with "high heat" black paint made for grills. I made that mistake, before doing enough research on how high heat paint works - the surface needs to get to at least 200F before the paint will cure. Because the paint never cured, it had a powdery coating, like coal dust. Unfortunately, to fix my mistake, I had to use stripper to remove the paint then resprayed with regular black spray paint. I hate to admit my further stupidity - in my haste to get rid of my almond appliances, I also painted the range hood and refrigerator with high heat paint before it dawned on me that I was in trouble. It was a hellish 3 days of fixing my mistake.

gretchenalexis: I learned years ago that it's easier to just overpaint onto the glass. Use a free blade from an x-acto knife or a razor and scrape the paint off after it dries.

Just like pushing back your cuticles. Nice.