CollinsAndBrown - 101 DIY Fixes!: Your Guide to Quick Jobs, Repairs and Renovations

DIY is a great way to refurbish your house for a fraction of the cost of a professional tradesman. But despite all the greats tips contained within this book, DIY isnt always the best solution. Learn when to do the job yourself and when to call in a builder.

Assuming that your house is more or less suitable for your needs but you feel its layout or facilities could be improved and it is in need of a good overhaul in certain departments what are you going to do?

In general terms, there are some basic jobs that can be done immediately with few skills and a simple toolkit. Take the doors in a room, for example. Are there too many? Would it be more convenient if one opened outwards into a hallway rather than into a room? Could a sliding or folding door instead of a hinged one save valuable floor space?

Such jobs, involving some ability in the use of bricks or plasterboard needed to block off a doorway or basic screwdriver and chisel work to alter the type or operation of doors, cost very little to do. Even blocking off a window to create a complete run of wall for extra storage requirements is not going to over-tax your purse or your do-it-yourself skills.

The problem you will face in altering walls will depend on whether they are simply of a partitioning or load-bearing nature. The former, especially in a modern house, where many interior walls are of plasterboard construction, is simple to remove. On the other hand, a brick wall serving as a partition can be a daunting task for anyone not used to heavy work.

If the brick wall is load-bearing that is, supporting part of the house structure above then it requires expert building knowledge to decide on the correct replacement support to insert before it is demolished. With any work of this sort you must get professional, onthe-spot advice before you do anything.

Conversely, if you need an extra room, it could well be possible to partition off a large room to create two smaller ones. In this case, building a plasterboard wall is essentially a hammer and nails carpentry job that most capable people should well be equal to.

The problem with planning alterations on this scale is being able to take a detached, clinical view of a house you have grown used to. It is sometimes impossible, for example, to imagine that cupboards or a large piece of furniture could be moved to an alternative location in a rearranged layout. We tend to become comfortable with familiar surroundings.

Before resorting to paying for the advice of an architect or surveyor, you need to get all your ideas down on paper. In other words, make a scale drawing of the complete floor area you want to alter. This does not have to be elaborate, but it should be accurate so use graph paper and work to a convenient scale.

On the plan, mark the outside walls of the house and the position of all doors, windows, drains and other service pipes and cable runs. The interior plan should show whether walls are load-bearing or not. In addition, you must indicate precisely the position of doors and windows, pipes and cable runs inside in fact, put down as much information as you think will be relevant.

It is only when you have the facts spread out in front of you that you can really begin to understand the existing layout of your house and, most important, the possible opportunities available for change.

The relevance of marking on the plan doors, windows, services and so on is to let you see at a glance where potential problems may lie and how difficult it is going to be to make particular alterations you may want. For example, a bathroom can pose problems since it has to function entirely around the supply and disposal of water. You cannot simply move it to the other side of the house as you might, say, with a dining room.