Your Last Home Improvement Project That Went Slightly Amok

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Like when I got this great idea to defrost the fridge with a hammer and a chisel. I ended up puncturing one of those little tubes that contains the freon and killed the unit. This wasn't a recent event, but the memory comes wafting back every now and then.

At the time I was renting an apartment and didn't want the landlord to know of my magnificent fuck-up so I hired a guy to weld the holes (yes, there were many) and refill the refrigerant, but things were never quite the same. Eventually a new refrigerator had to be purchased and I remember acting as if nothing had ever happened.

Please tell me that I am not alone with these absurdities.

― jim wentworth (wench), Monday, 30 August 2004 03:46 (twenty-one years ago)

i did the EXACT same thing in our apartment in white plains.

Really, the only way to do that properly is to leave the door open, put a towel inside to avoid a flood, and wait it out.

I only know that because I had to learn the hard way.

Wifey and I are both pretty handy, and we split up responsibilties well - she's more the 'put things together' kind, I'm more the 'fix them when they break' guy.

That said, MANY shelves have collapsed over the years.

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Monday, 30 August 2004 04:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Nowadays I use a hair dryer - and, oh yeah, the towels. Live and learn.

― jim wentworth (wench), Monday, 30 August 2004 04:10 (twenty-one years ago)

This is why I bought a frost-free fridge/freezer.

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 30 August 2004 04:13 (twenty-one years ago)

this topic is a sore point to me for various reasons

― purple patch (electricsound), Monday, 30 August 2004 04:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I dont own my place so I cant really do reno's. I wish I could! I dearly want to tear up and replace the carpet (ok, I ruined it, but it was a horrible blue plush!), replace the crappy white microvanetians with wooden blinds, and paint all the bedroom wardrobe doors a nice chinese red.

But I cant :( I rent.

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 30 August 2004 04:18 (twenty-one years ago)

you can't even paint?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 30 August 2004 04:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Without permission renters cant do a single thing to a property they live in. I asked if I could paint once before and never got a reply. I dont see why they'd object, though the flat's overall colour scheme is very neutral - white walls and doors and floore tiles with blue carpet - so bright red wardrobes would be a bit odd.

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 30 August 2004 04:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I wish I could afford to buy the flat.

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 30 August 2004 04:30 (twenty-one years ago)

i once painted a rented flat. the landlord even paid for the paint seeing as i was providing the labour.

― gem (trisk), Monday, 30 August 2004 04:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Yesterday was my last day at work and the TV reception went crap cos the cable is a bit rubbish. So, armed with a stanley knife and a pair of pliers I set about trying to repair the degraded reception. And lost it all together. They might not notice.

― Craig Gilchrist, Monday, 30 August 2004 06:56 (twenty-one years ago)

you know those $39.99 assembly-required office chairs from staples? there's a reason they're only $39.99 (CHEAP USELESS PIECE OF SHIT ARGH GODDAMN FUCK).

i'm pretty handy so i was able to cobble it together despite the different pieces not lining up exactly where they're supposed to. but it took a while.

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 30 August 2004 07:29 (twenty-one years ago)

it's a nice chair! sturdy back, leather, swively. but i remember thinking "er, 40 bucks? what's wrong with it?". now i know.

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 30 August 2004 07:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Carrying the ladder up from the garage to paint the kitchen, I sort of stepped wrong, and fucked up my knee something awful.

― Layna Andersen (Layna Andersen), Monday, 30 August 2004 07:36 (twenty-one years ago)

When I shared a flat, one of my roomates decided to defrost the freezer, so just left the door open and went to bed. As well as the kitchen getting flooded (which acted as a living room, I had loads of books on the floor and papers from some work I was doing. Grrr.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Monday, 30 August 2004 09:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I tiled my bathroom a few months back. When removing toilet to put tiles underneath, please remember to turn off the water or else your downstairs neighbor will be pissed.

― Velveteen Bingo (Chris V), Monday, 30 August 2004 11:34 (twenty-one years ago)

aaah! defrosting the fridge! thats gonna be my new project!

― erik, Monday, 30 August 2004 11:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to deliver furniture and appliances. This preacher wanted a queen size bed for the upstairs at his cottage by the lake. Try as my partner and I did, the box spring unit just wouldn't fit up the tiny stairway.

The preacher got a crowbar and ripped up the stairs and said "try it now." Still no luck. He excused himself while he went and got a saws-all. I can only imagine what happened next, but we had a schedule to keep and wished him well.

― jim wentworth (wench), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 01:16 (twenty-one years ago)

i have lathe and plaster walls (for the most part), and every time I try to put up a shelf, I wind up with a giant hole in the wall. those anchor dealies they sell at the hardware store work about one out of ten times.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 06:20 (twenty-one years ago)

The only home improvement project thingamajig that I can recall not being all it was promised to be is this current reorganization thing I'm doing with my stuff. I'm trying to be more neater, more organized, and throw out any superfluous items. It's taken me about four big trash bags to hold everything I've wanted to throw out and I STILL have tons of stuff to deal with. I had no idea I had as many books and magazines as I do! But the one really good thing about this project is that I'm finding all sorts of things I'd never thought I'd see again. I found my old world religions book, some magazines I haven't seen in years and had thought were thrown away a long time ago, a book of Oscar Wilde's writings that I'd nearly forgotten I had, and several old greeting cards I was happy to hang onto.

― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 08:38 (twenty-one years ago)

(Otherwise -- Dad was a carpenter and electrician by trade, you know. And knew some basic plumbing. So, you know, learning from him and all....)

― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 08:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Trying to put up a new rail for the shower curtain. Those things are spring-loaded, you only get one shot at pulling them out to the correct length and then you are in a world of non-retracting shower rail hell. It took THREE of us to do it in the end: Jack and I standing in the bath holding it up, getting tangled in the curtain and Kate standing on the toilet hitting it. It was only a flimsy piece of Ikea plastic, I don't know where its strength came from.

― Anna (Anna), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 09:47 (twenty-one years ago)

seven years pass...

ive mudded a bit of drywall in my day, but somehow i never quite processed that spackle is a totally dif thing. duh.

how the fuck am i gonna fix this?

― yeah, niche-y, that's what i meant (Hunt3r), Saturday, 29 October 2011 23:50 (fourteen years ago)

nine years pass...

― xzanfar, Monday, 7 December 2020 15:43 (five years ago)

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