8 easy DIY tasks all mums should know

8 easy DIY tasks all mums should know

Although my parents live next door, sometimes as single married mum I need to fix things around the home on my own. I must confess I don’t enjoy it at all but what can you do if a screw from a cupboard comes loose?

Call the handyman? Or wait a month until your hubby comes back? So sometimes regardless of my hate to fixing things around the home I need to do it. Even the girls giggle when they see me do it as they know that I much prefer to bake a cake rather than do DIY.

So if you are a single married mum like me , or your husband is not very good at fixing things or you simply live on your own with your children than I think it is really important to arm yourself with a bit of DIY knowledge.

Before you do anything though, make sure you are equipped the right way for the jobs you are doing. I find that Engelbert Strauss site has everything you need for this. I love the fact that they have a special section for woman clothing and one for kids. Who says you can’t have a cute helper while you do some DIY? I quite like this Children’s bib & brace and i am sure the girls would find it quite fun to wear too.

Children's bib & brace

Plus they could both use it for when the construction of the extension will start too! The whole family could get matching clothing like this.

6 Easy DIY Tasks for Women

Unblock a sink 

A sink can block for several reasons. The main reason our bathroom sink gets blocked is hair! I guess with three girls with long hair in the house that is just a given.

There are several products on the market you could use to unblock a clogged sink but the best and cheapest one is to use bicarbonate of soda. You simply pour 2-3 tablespoons of bicarbonate of soda down the plug hole, add about 100ml of vinegar (any type – as cheap as you can get) ,leave it a couple of minutes and than you turn on the hot water and leave it running for 4-5 minutes.

If the above doesn’t help that you might need to distant the U-bend. You should not need any tools as all connections are hand-tightened. Before dismantling it, make sure you put a bucket under the sink and get some old clothes or cloths nearby as water might come flooding down. Wash the U-bend in another sink (kitchen) and reassemble. Then everything will be sorted for you!

Repair a Leaky Tap

When a tap is leaky is sooo annoying isn’t it? Especially when you try to sleep. Drip, drip, drip….thankfully there are lots of tutorials online that can help you figure out how to do it. One thing I know is that you need to turn off the water supply to the taps as otherwise….you will get water everywhere.

Take a look at the instructions on this site about leaky taps and you will find exactly what to do.

Remove or replace a door knob or a lock

With kids around the house…things like this can happen. Once when I was a kid I broke the key inside the lock and my mum had to call a handy man to replace the lock as my dad was away.(he was a sailor when he was young).

But that might not be the only reason why you need to replace it. If you lose your key for example you will have to do that as well, Plus this is a very good DIY skill to have. Wikihow has a step by step guide for this. Check it here.

Use a screwdriver

Some of you might laugh at this but I found it really hard to hold the thing straight, you know. And if you don’t hold it straight than the screw will break. From kids toys to furniture…everything has screws these days so it is really important to know what kind of screwdriver to use and how to handle it.

Put together a piece of furniture

If you are like me. And most mums are…hi hi. You are always on the lookout for the next piece of furniture you will buy for the home. There are lots of places that deliver the Now every piece of furniture has step by step instructions so all you need to do is follow the instructions and know how to use a screwdriver. I started with dolls houses and I moved up to putting a desk together.

My favourite furniture shop is still IKEA. There are 11 years almost since I first stepped into that shop. Ah…memories…

Paint

Most of us mums know how to paint don’t we? However, before we start with a painting job we need to make sure that the paint we are using is right for the surface we want to paint. Plus we need to make sure that surface we want to paint is prepared for paint.

I’ve painted lots of things in my life from small jars to walls and sometimes I made mistakes of course because I didn’t research enough.

For more information about painting you can read up this article from DIY network. Lots of clever articles on that website by the way so you should check it out!

Cleaning limescale of taps, sinks and showers

For this I am also using the bicarbonate of soda and vinegar again. For taps, you just need to put a couple of a bicarb to one tablespoon of vinegar in a plastic bag. Tie the bag over the taps making sure that the ends are dipped in the wonder solution. Leave it for 2-4 hours to sit and scrub it off with an old toothbrush.

For everything else, just put the same mixture in a bottle with pulvelizator and spray on top of the surfaces that need cleaning. Leave it a while, than scrub and wipe it off. If the surface needs some more than repeat.

8 Easy DIY tasks for women

Use a power drill

They used to be so scary for me! Even when I saw my husband doing it. I always had the feeling that it will go through his hand or something. Anyway, I will not go into technical stuff because I really don’t know how to explain everything to you. .

However, Michelle from Lowe’s Home Improvement explains it really well for you in her video “How to use a power drill“.

What other DIY jobs you do around the house since you become a mum?

Disclosure: This is a commissioned post.

 

 

 

 

 

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