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That’s a good question, to which the answer I would normally give would be in the region of 2 to 4 - one at each end and maybe one or two in the middle if it’s a long window. OK, your curtain pole may require two screws - one above each other - for each bracket. Anyway, if I said 13 you’d probably think I was having a laugh. Well, laugh away. You see, the curtain pole that was holding our patio door curtains up was held in with 13 (yes, thirteen) screws sitting in 13 rather large holes, held in with 13 super-sized Rawlplugs as can be seen in this picture:

Now I guess you’re thinking that it must have been some really heavy curtain rail or curtains to warrant that many screws? Well, no. In fact, the rail was a less-than-average flat aluminium rail - nothing to write home about (unless it’s something derogatory) and the curtains were just patio curtains (albeit not our choice, but they put us on for a while).

You see, the people who lived here before us (we only moved in here in April this year) seemed to love doing things themselves. Unfortunately, whenever they did, although usually a neat job on first appearance, behind the scenes it was a dog’s dinner. One further example of that is the extra plug sockets that were put in. The one in the room that I use as my office was a metal plated double socket. Apart from the fact that I don’t really like metal plated sockets (reminds me of school), I decided to remove it and replace it with a normal one. To cut a long story short, the box was not earthed and weas being fed from another dodgy socket downstairs with 13A flex insted of 30A mains cable.
Needless to say, we’ve got an electrician coming in soon and he’s going tp put right all of the previous owner’s botches. Meanwhile, in my spare time, you’ll find me around the house pulling out oversized screws and their accompanying Rawlplugs that appear to have no function whatsoever out of the walls and filling up the craters with Pollyfilla.

Now don’t get me started about the lack of painting this house has had in its 14 year existance. That’s for another entry in a few weeks time.

After a quick trip out with Ed yesterday morning, when I got back (after stopping off for an obligatory pint), Vic asked me if I’d mind mowing the lawns. Normally the answer to this would be Yes, I do mind, but as the sun was blazing and I was keen to be outside, I obliged. Besides, they were looking a bit neglected and I needed to check the mower after the last fiasco.

You may or may not be pleased to learn that the mower works. I was slightly miffed at first, as I thought I’d be able to get a new mower, but then realised that the £150 it would cost me to buy a petrol one could be better spent on something else… Now then… Ebuyer…?

I’m not talking about work… Vic asked me to replace the old cupboard door handles with some newer, better looking ones. “Easy job”, I thought. Not so. It took me yesterday and today to complete the task at hand. Why? Well, underneath the knobs are fancy metal plate thingies, which all needed to be taken off the cupboard doors, sanded down to the bare metal and spraying with Hammerite silver paint (all 17 of them).

Of course, nothing ever runs smoothly. As I was taking the metal plates off, I broke the tips off almost half of them - they were nailed in to the cupboard doors and needed prizing off (you’d have to see them to know what I mean). Still, not to worry, a bit of Superglue and some creative spray painting fixed that!

Being a little impatient, I picked the metal plate thingies up and went to put them on the cupboard doors but ended up putting my fingerprints in them because they were still a bit wet. Back to the garage for a rub down and another spray (the metal things, not me!). Anyway, I finally got round to finishing it off this afternoon, I went out to B&Q and bought what I thought were the right knobs. Of course, they were wrong - but I didn’t find this out until I’d put them all on and Vic came home.

Vic makes trip number 45 to B&Q since Sunday to change the knobs for the fourth time (we eventually ended up going with the ones we’d decided on initially) We’re practically residents of B&Q these days.

Still, it looks better than it did - and with what little time I had left over I also managed to change the light bulbs in the cooker hood vent and the filter and also give it a good clean. There’s really not much to them, they’re dead easy to strip down and put back together without ending up with spare parts. I did, however manage to snap the light cover - I just knew it would happen. It was warped and I tried to bend it back into shape.

Good old Superglue!

Not strictly DIY, but whilst mowing the back lawn today I think I may have blown the motor on the lawn mower. We have clay soil, which as you can imagine holds the moisture very well and given all the rain we’ve had lately, I probably shouldn’t have been mowing with an electric mower. Anyway, I decided to call it a day when I could smell dry roasting Flymo. Still, I’ll see how it goes next time and if all else fails, think about getting a petrol driven one. (They don’t do LPG powered ones, do they?)