Top DIY jobs to tackle during lockdown

As Brits approach their third week of lockdown, everyone’s going a bit stir crazy.

You’re probably fed up of hearing the words ‘corona’, ‘virus’ and ‘COVID’. They’ve taken over your life, your TV and your social media feeds.

To distract yourself, you may be planning a bit of light DIY. After all, you are stuck in the house for the foreseeable future.

What if you painted that wall that’s been peeling for the last three years? Maybe you should fix the wardrobe doors that have creaked for as long as you can remember. This could be a good time to plant those shrubs you bought six months ago that have since been living in their plastic tubs.

Well, first things first, congratulations, you’ve made it this far without murdering your spouse, any of your children or the dog.

That’s a fair achievement in itself.

But there’s only so many times you can attempt a Joe Wicks’ workout or try to teach your children maths (seriously, they’re learning things you don’t even know).

If you’re looking for DIY tasks that can be done using minimal tools and materials that you don’t need to go out and purchase, this is the right place.

We’re only supposed to be leaving the house for necessities, such as food and medicine, but it’s already been noted that people are flouting the rules. According to Google Trends, there’s been a HUGE influx in people searching for DIY- and paint-related queries in the last month:

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(If you’ve never used Google Trends before, it’s kind of addictive to see what words have been searched in Google over up to five years.)

We’re all fed up and if you can’t leave the house, you too could be thinking about getting the paint brushes out to spruce up the house and garden.

However, lockdown instructions mean that you shouldn’t be popping to your local B&M for wallpaper, paint or any other form of DIY tools.

Therefore, I’ve created this handy post using data from Victorian Plumbing to show you some of the tasks you can do using tools already in your home and supplies that can be bought online.

 

What are people planning during Lockdown?

Victorian Plumbing looked at the most frequently mentioned DIY tasks on Reddit. They took this list to see how often each task was searched in Google and the number of views on ‘how-to’ YouTube videos to see what people were planning during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Using this information amongst other things, they created a unique score to find out what DIY jobs most people are attempting while coronavirus is around.

They discovered that many of us are attempting to plaster a ceiling. I would not recommend doing this – plastering is HARD. However, according to Victorian Plumbing, this DIY task has had 4,400 Google searches and people have viewed these how-to YouTube videos nearly 6 MILLION TIMES in the past month.

Hanging wallpaper came in second, followed by unblocking drains.

Other popular tasks include tiling a floor, removing grout from tiles, hanging doors, assembling flat pack furniture (IKEA will be doing well out of this) and installing kitchen cabinets.

The only problem with these things is that you may have to go out for supplies, which is seriously frowned upon.

So what tasks can you do right now without needing to purchase a huge amount of tools and materials?

 

What tasks require the least amount of tools?

If you’re itching to improve your home this corona season, here are some fairly basic jobs that you should be able to do without needing to purchase any tools.

You could change your door handles. Buy the handles online and simply use a screwdriver to fit them. DONE.

You could have a go at upcycling some furniture. The item will need to be sanded using sandpaper and then painted. Paint and other prep items, like masking tape, can be bought online as can the sandpaper. This is great task that can be done outside when the weather’s nice. You can also sand and paint other things too, like your skirting boards, stairs and doors. Go crazy!

Finally, you could remove old grout from your bathroom tiles. This generally requires two tools – a reciprocating saw and a utility knife. Doing this could have such a big impact on your bathroom or kitchen. Alternatively, if you can’t be bothered to remove the old grout, you could use a grout pen to paint over what’s already there.

 

So there you have it, Victorian Plumbing’s guide on lockdown tasks you can achieve easily. What DIY have you done during the lockdown so far? I’d love to hear from you!