Gestión del riesgo

While finding time for carrying out DIY projects was difficult enough for most of my interviewees (with the notable exception of retirees who had time on their hands and were all now living in low maintenance homes), so too was accurately estimating the amount of time needed to complete a specific project. As can be seen in the four accounts below, with the exception of small scale or routine tasks, my interviewees’ projects almost always exceeded the length of time they expected them to take.

…the bathroom, well it involved a lot more work at the time … we thought oh yeah, we’ll just do this and that, but things like tiling around the bath actually took a lot more work and a lot longer than we first thought. I hope the tiles don’t fall down one day (Jerry).

They [projects] never stay the size you thought. Never, it’s always more (Rose).

Not being able to start and finish in the timeframe you expect is particularly annoying. You sort of do projects in bits and pieces … there’s the weather interruptions, the stuff-ups and we all eventually fall into that “DIY time trap” (Barry).

You can’t really appreciate the real long hours DIY takes you until you’re in there with a hammer or paintbrush in your hand for all those hours, Sure you can do all the planning you want, but it rarely goes as smoothly as that (Bruce).

Given the level of DIY project planning my interviewees said they did (as interested in Chapter Seven), I was surprised to hear these comments and asked them to elaborate; to explain why their DIY projects tended to extend in length. In response, they described a wide variety of contingencies which had interrupted the flow of their work in past projects, leading to what Barry refers to above as the “DIY time trap” – the inevitability that a project would take much longer than initially anticipated.

157 Some interviewees associated delays in their DIY work with the disjuncture between their practical knowledge and the demands of the project they were carrying out. Jerry, for one, said that despite his planning efforts, when he began projects he only ever felt that he

“roughly” knew what was involved, yet was quick to point out that the exploratory nature of DIY was part of the appeal. He also pointed out that because he was not a professional, he was always oblivious to all the “little intermediate steps involved – all the nitty-gritty” which always added more work and time to the project. To demonstrate the point, Jerry, described his recent attempt to reline the lounge and the way in which the unknown and emergent nature of the project resulted in it taking much longer than he anticipated:

So we planned to pull the wallboard off and thought that was it but naturally we didn’t realise that we’d have to pull off this and this, like the light switches and plugs, so we could pull the wallboard off. It seemed so simple when we were thinking and talking about it, but it’s when you’re doing it that you realise there’s always more involved, all the little bits and pieces which take time as well (Jerry).

Linda made a similar comment when discussing her and her husband John’s efforts to paint the exterior of their house. She pointed out that because it was the first time they had done the task (and despite a great deal of preparatory research), they began with no real idea of how much work was involved, only becoming aware of the realities as the project progressed. Shane also noted what he had gradually learnt from his DIY experiences that while a job may look straightforward there was “always the possibility of more work under the surface”. Marty provided a similar view noting that his projects always seemed to keep “going and

going … getting bigger than [he] thought it would ever be” – putting this down to his inexperience and lack of know-how:

You can’t really see the true size of a job until you’ve pulled it apart to see what’s going on inside the building. For example, that south facing wall I completely replaced. In the beginning I thought I’d only have to replace a few things here and there and it’d be fine. But no, the whole thing had to be ripped out (Marty).

Mary volunteered a similar story:

…I was stripping wallpaper and thought I’d just get that one layer off but as I did it I discovered paper on paper on paper. It was like digging and it took me much, much, longer than I wanted and that’s often the case with DIY, it’s not until you get into it that you become aware of the true size of the job, which can be pretty frustrating (Mary).

158 A similar point of frustration often experienced during the execution of DIY projects was the discovery of additional work to be done – an unanticipated project-within-a-project. Often these unforeseen contingencies changed the trajectory of the work, calling for a new strategy, new materials and, by extension, a further investment of time and money.

You start with a rip and a snort and all the enthusiasm in the world and then reality hits you, it all just keeps on going and the money keeps on flowing. We thought we’d have the bathroom finished by February but other stuff happened and the old bath didn’t get taken out until March … we had to replace a bunch of rotten wood which we didn’t know was there until we pulled the floor up, so there are always delays (Hazel).

My interviewees said that it was also common for projects to be stymied by resource issues. Many recalled instances when they ran short of a particular building material part way through the project or found themselves without the right tool for the task at hand. In some instances, this simply required a trip to a local hardware store to obtain what was needed, unless of course, as Bruce pointed out, the DIY stores were closed.

Marty’s narrative below provides excellent insight into the underestimation of material requirements, which meant he often found himself having to return to DIY stores time and time again until he finally had the correct gear and materials for the job – what he considered a significant ‘waste’ of time:

When projects go good they’re good, but when they go bad it isn’t such a pleasure. Like its good when you get to the shop and you’ve got your plan and your measuring tape and you buy everything you need; you’ve got what you want and you go home and put it in. When it’s going bad you get there and you find out you haven’t got anything in your plan right. You’ve messed up measurements or forgotten them or something like that. You’re just wasting time. Sometimes you end up buying stuff that’s too big or too small and that wastes even more time and is pretty frustrating (Marty).

Another factor influencing the rate of progress in DIY projects was the practitioners’ changing mood. Most of my interviewees told me that they usually started a project with a great deal of enthusiasm but occasionally lost interest and momentum. This was especially common for projects involving repetitive tasks (such as exterior painting) or when the work involved in a project became more physically demanding than they expected. Barry added that while his enthusiasm for a project remained high when he felt things were going right, it almost always changed when he began to “feel lost or bored” – his enthusiasm waning and,

159 more often than not, leading him to start a new project (leaving the former incomplete). “The

wife gets mad as hell and it causes a bit of tension, so you’ll go back to it later and try and get a bit of traction back and away you go again” (Barry). Barry pointed out that because there was always another project that could be started (and one possibly more exciting and interesting than the current project), it was common for him to walk away from a “difficult or

dull job half finished”. There were many other examples of this:

So you might start and finish a window, and then you have to start scraping down another one, and because you don’t like that job you sort of leave it and muddle round with something else, until you get nagged by the wife to start again (Barry).

When you’re doing it yourself there’s no real pressure on you to complete within a timeframe, but if you got bored with a project you often finished up with a job half done. And that happens in the odd case; you only get so far before moving on to something more exciting (Charlie).

My interviewees described a variety of wider forces which had interrupted their DIY projects – many of which were beyond their direct control. Common among them was the onset of bad weather, which had halted some projects in their tracks or stopped them from commencing altogether. Barry, for example, told me that he had to wait several months one summer for a weekend of suitable weather for roof painting, having made several

“frustrating starts” but each time having to abandon the work due to the onset of rain. Jerry relayed a similar story, having postponed pouring a concrete path because of an unexpected and early spring snowfall, despite having hired a concrete mixer for the day. Charlie, a lawn care enthusiast, also expressed his frustration with the onset of adverse weather, particularly when wet conditions made it impossible for him to mow his prize lawn. Some of my interviewees provided more general comments regarding the effect of the weather on their DIY projects, noting that a gloomy day could often bring about a change in their mood for doing DIY, with them preferring instead to spend their free time “lounging around the

house” (Anna). It should be noted here that the weather could also be “perfect” for DIY, with several of my interviewees pointing out that a great deal could be achieved in and around the home over a weekend of dry warm weather, providing one had the time and desire that day to engage in DIY.

In addition to the weather, some of my interviewees said their DIY projects were frequently interrupted by friends and family members dropping by their house on social visits. Several said that when visitors did drop by, they always felt obliged to stop what they were doing in

160 order to entertain their guests. Such stoppages invariably delayed the project (although it should also be noted here that occasionally these unexpected visitors lent a hand, thereby speeding up the work). Alan, reflecting on an interruption to his exterior painting project, provides a good summary of the situation:

…when you’re doing DIY you get interrupted. When Tom and Jules came round the other day I should have said “look sorry guys but I’m busy”, but I spent like an hour and a half talking to them when I should have been sanding. When you’re doing little things like that, you really need to get done, because they depend on the external elements such as weather, you really need to commit to them, but the flip side is it’s also nice to see your friends and it’s even better when they offer to lend a hand (Alan).

During the interviews, my respondents mentioned a wide variety of everyday events which had interrupted their DIY projects; too many to cover in this short section. Examples ranged from the most trivial and fleeting happenings (such as having to get off the ladder to calm a barking dog or tend to a crying child) through to more significant life changes. One such example at this far end of the spectrum was provided by Hamish who said that the DIY projects he was doing came to a halt when he started a new business and found himself working through the weekends.

It’s put a huge amount of stop on the home DIY stuff. If things get busier I’ll struggle to fit in even the urgent jobs I need to do … My DIY has dropped right back. It’s not so important now because I’ve got so much other stuff to do. I do have a list of things to do like replacing the roof, finishing the kitchen and so on and so on ... it’s all been put on hold, in fact, to the point where it’s probably going backwards at the moment. My priorities have changed and the DIY I have done I’ve had to fit around the starting of my new business (Hamish).

Eric told me how the DIY projects he was executing drew to an immediate close when his wife Amy received news that she had attained a job in Australia, forcing them to rethink their plans for the house. Eric said that at the time he had several projects “on the go,” all of which were aiming to better accommodate the changing needs of their growing family. Amy’s good news, however, meant that these projects had to be abandoned with Eric shifting his efforts to a quick makeover of two unfinished bedrooms and a swift tidy-up of the property to prepare the house for sale. Reflecting on this situation Eric said “…so life events have had an impact

on how things [projects] have happened … our plans changed, all of a sudden, so I never got to make the changes we dreamed about – it was a really difficult time, but that’s life” (Eric).

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