ON THE ROAD: Roddy Woomble
DIY: three letters that, when put together, fill me with dread. Of course, do-it-yourself means different things to different people. In music you've got the whole "DIY scene": musicians dedicated to recording their own songs, releasing their own albums, putting on their own gigs, advertising it all themselves etc.
What I'm really talking about is home improvement. As a term, indeed as a philosophy, it's noble enough: doing things for yourself, taking a personal involvement in your home. Not having to rely on others to do odd jobs. It still echoes the beliefs of the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century, when the term was originally coined.
Unfortunately for me, it's putting it into practice that I'm not good at. One of the many reasons (ineptitude being the main one) is that it inevitably incurs a visit to the temple of home decoration and preservation: B&Q. These huge stores are the goliaths of DIY, usually full of enthusiasts and professionals strutting around purposefully, excited about the job in hand. At weekends especially, they are packed. Who would have thought a shop selling hammers, nails, sinks and garden furniture could have become the place so many people choose to spend their Sunday afternoons.
On this particular Sunday, it proves predictably heaving and difficult to navigate. I walk up and down vast aisles looking for a wallpaper scraper and a sponge. Numerous bored-looking children trolley past me, their parents debating what wallpaper will look best in the bathrooms. I have a flashback to my own youth and being dragged around similar establishments, my parents deliberating over my head about grout and houseplants. I make a mental note to never inflict this on my own children, even if their hobbies turn out to be tiling and plastering.
Luckily my wife, who comes from a family of joiners, is in her element, asking about paint toxicity and taking visible delight in deciding what type of PVA glue to buy. "Go and sit in the car if you want," she says, noticing me staring vacantly into a display of paint cans. But the only people sitting in the parked cars outside are ailing grannies and dogs. Instead I take a stroll into the garden section and make a rash decision to buy some grass seed (which is totally useless since we have no garden).
Back at home, the room has been emptied of furniture, the walls "prepped" and I'm ready to strip off some paper. Over the years, in rented student rooms, I have carried out the necessary sloppy job of covering up the nicotine stains with a lick of cheap white paint. But I've never stripped wallpaper in a room I care about. I actually want it to look good. It becomes evident early on, however, that this is not going to be an easy goal to reach. The wallpaper really does not want to come off. For all I know it's been on this wall for over 50 years, painted and repainted until it's become the wall's skin. After half an hour of sweating and straining, something approaching a technique develops. It's not one many professional decorators would employ, but I'm getting there. A few hours later, my hands are blistered and there is a weird twitching muscle in my right arm, but the wall has been stripped of paper to reveal a surface with its own story. Like a beautiful old scratchy backdrop, chipped green paint fades into a distressed deep yellow. It's like the geology of former residents' decorating decisions. It looks lovely, and transforms the room from being four white walls, into being three white walls and one that looks as if it's from a rustic, 1930s French farmhouse. Well, it does to me anyway. I decide to leave it as it is. That's what all this DIY's about, after all. You Do It Yourself and when you've had enough, think something looks good and want to stop, the Decision Is Yours.
