YouTube can be very helpful with regard to DIY jobs. There are thousands of short videos covering activities like wallpapering, tiling a bathroom, laying concrete etcetera. Studying them can provide helpful tips to make one's own attempts at DIY more successful.
Now over the last month I have been in DIY mode as I have sought to attend to various practical matters at our son's terraced house in Sheffield 2, near Sheffield United's football ground. Yesterday I set about sealing the edges of the bath with white silicone. It is a job I have undertaken before and it always ends up unpleasantly with silicone all over my hands and my stress level rising like the pressure gauge on a steam train.
Consequently, before returning to the house for the umpteenth time I checked out a few YouTube videos about sealing baths. A great tip I picked up was about using parallel lengths of masking tape near the joint to avoid getting the silicone on to the bath or the surrounding tiles.
I came across two Australian videos. Previously, I had thought of Australians as carefree, "can do" people with a healthy disrespect for authority and rules but watching the two videos rather altered that perception.
To remove the hard plastic top of the silicone tube, one DIY instructor donned safety gloves before taking her sharp "Stanley" knife to do the one second job. Why she held the tube in mid air I have no idea. In the other video, the fellow put safety glasses on before squeezing the silicone round the edge of the bath. Safety glasses! Was he planning to squeeze the stuff into his eyeballs? He also wore gloves when using the silicone gun (see picture).
Safety is usually a good thing. It is best not to drive the wrong way along a motorway. When scaling ladders it is best to have a heavy human being at the bottom and on building sites it is surely wise to wear hard hats. However, wearing gloves to sever a plastic top and putting on safety glasses before using a silicone gun seem very much OTT (over the top). Perhaps the pioneering Aussie spirit is transmuting into self-absorbed safety consciousness. No wonder my favourite Aussie blogging ladies have been yelling at me not to climb the ladders! But I am Yorkshire and we are brave. I shall go up!
I suspect it's the modern fear of being sued by someone if your demonstration tempts an American(or theses days even a Brit) to use a Stanley knife carelessly. I'll bet they don't don gloves when doing the job themselves.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought of that Graham. You are probably right.
DeleteWell, don't expect us to catch you when you fall!
ReplyDeleteWe'll be otherwise occupied sipping Margaritas, held in our glove-less hands while relaxing on a deck overlooking the ocean. Oh...life wasn't meant to be this easy...
I hope you don't end up battered like your namesake! :)
If I fall I will be over in Queensland in my electric wheelchair. You can feed me soup through a straw and wipe away my drool.
DeleteIn your dreams! lol
DeletePlease don't go up all the way on that ladder. My Big Bear says that the cost of paying a professional to do that sort of thing is not as much as the cost of one MRI, let alone what else might happen to you going up there. You really don't want Shirley left alone to feed Fred, do you?
ReplyDeleteSince I retired about nine years ago, I have taught myself lots of things watching instructions on youtube and on blogs of the internet. In order they are...knitting, jewelry making, card making, bread making, and quilting. I have also used those same resources to improve my skills in sewing, cooking, planning trips, and picking fashions for a woman of my age. What did we ever do without the internet???
What did we do without the internet? We grunted and dragged our knuckles on the ground.... or climbed up ladders to paint walls.
DeleteI tend to clear the room when I snap on a pair of disposable gloves ...,,,
ReplyDeleteProstate inspection time boys! With sadistic Nurse Leishy!
DeleteHe he !!!!!
DeleteIn response to your last sentence in your post above...that's what Humpty Dumpty said, too....
ReplyDeleteHow come you always get to have the last word Lee? I will have it this time and it's - RHUBARB!
DeleteAs long as it's with warm custard!
Delete'He is also wearing gloves when using the silicone gun (see picture).'
ReplyDeleteDidn't I read in the second paragraph: it always ends up unpleasantly with silicone all over my hands and my stress level rising like the pressure gauge on a steam train.
So, maybe there is a good reason for wearing gloves......
Ms Soup
I have to second alphabet soup in that. Wearing gloves is one way to prevent ending up with silicone all over your hands. Bet you hadn't thought of that!
ReplyDeleteAs for the safety glasses... hmm... that really is very odd. Does silicone (while it is still soft) emit vapours that are potentially harmful to the eyes?
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ReplyDelete