On Doing It Yourself

Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light

Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!

It is the business of the wealthy man

To give employment to the artisan.

-- Hillaire Belloc

DIY is a major industry, even a kind of leisure activity, in the UK. Everybody has one or two "DIYers" in the family but, when I first became a homeowner back in the 90s, I'd never even changed a lightbulb. Eventually, though, I went on to undertake large-scale re-wiring, plumbing, gas-fitting, structural modifications, brick-laying, roofing, and plastering. Nearly forty years on, I'm still doing these things myself.

I do none of them well although, in my favour, I'll point out that my house hasn't fallen down (yet). The first time I put up a shelf, my wife photographed the whole process from start to finish, certain that it would lead to some amusing catastrophe. It didn't; but when I look back at the outstanding incompetence with which I approached the task, I cringe in embarrassment.

I've certainly suffered my share of amusing catastrophes since then. I once screwed my hand to a roof joist whilst installing a light fitting. This would have been bad enough on its own, but I had to unscrew my hand whilst balancing at the top of a ladder before I could get back on the ground. It seems funny now, but I don't remember laughing at the time. I've fallen off things, broken things, and set things on fire more often than I can recall.

Like the unfortunate Lord Finchley I've rarely given employment to the artisan and, like him, I can well afford to. For most of my working life I made more money per hour than a skilled plumber or electrician, so I have to wonder why I felt I needed to do their jobs, as well as my own.

My reluctance to employ people hasn't decreased as I've aged. Last year, recently retired, I re-rendered the outside walls of my house. Well, the rear walls, which nobody else will see. And a good thing, too, because the standard of my workmanship was pretty low. It takes years of training and practice to become a competent plasterer; why I thought I could master it in a week with only YouTube for a mentor, I have no idea.

One of the most dispiriting things about DIY projects like this is that you learn a lot by undertaking them but, by the time you've learned, it's too darned late. You need that knowledge before you start, not after you've finished. I'm sure I'd make a better a job of that exterior rendering if I did it again, but I'm not going to chisel off the plaster and find out. Nor am I foolish enough to move on to the part of the house that other people can see. Even if I were, my wife wouldn't let me.

So why am I still doing this? Partly it's because I'm extraordinarily cheap. I won't spend so much as a penny without a full cost-benefit analysis. I can't really blame my natural stinginess, though, because I'm not sure I really save a lot of money by doing it myself. Decent tools, in particular, are expensive. Building materials are expensive, too, if you buy them in quantities smaller than a truck-load. No: saving money isn't the explanation.

The most ardent DIYers I know tell me that they do their own work because "that way I know it's been done properly." For sure, there are some lazy, shoddy tradespeople out there; we've all heard the horror stories. But, frankly, any plumber or builder with premises you can serve court papers on, who's still in business, is likely to do a better job than I can.

I suspect that the real explanation is this: I feel, deep down, that employing somebody to do work I could do -- however inexpertly -- myself makes me a class traitor.

I'm descended from a long line of tradesmen, men who worked with their hands their whole lives, usually outdoors, for modest wages, with little or no formal education. They didn't employ another person to do domestic repairs, because they couldn't afford to. In that environment, you either fixed it yourself, or it stayed broken.

I was one of the few in my extended family to remain in education after age sixteen, and the very first to study at university. While my parents were very keen that I had a proper education -- something for which I will always be grateful -- most of my relatives thought that school was a middle-class affectation.

In short, the reason I do everything myself is because I can't bear the thought of my ancestors spinning in their graves.

Published 2026-07-28, updated 2026-07-28

On Doing It Yourself

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