Simple DIY jobs you can do at home during lockdown
Lifestyle

5 Simple DIY jobs to do at home during lockdown

It may seem virtually impossible to get anything done at the moment. You may be mid house renovation and your work has stopped as a result of the current lockdown, or your planned projects are now on hold. Annoying we have one of those projects as we are currently renovating our front garden. The garden paving has been removed and the new wall is built, but we are temporarily on pause until a big bag of sand arrives (hopefully next week) to allow the hard base for the new path and paving to be laid. Fingers crossed.

At the same time you may also be trying to juggle work whilst looking after the kids. Whatever you’re doing, I am sure that TIME is one of your biggest hindrances. I have so many ideas in my head of things that I want to do; whether it’s for this blog or things to do round the house, all of which I’m finding impossible to do whilst looking after my children. However that’s not to say that nothing can be done.

In the little snippets of time that we do have during the day, whilst the kids nap, or in the evenings it is possible to crack on with a few simple DIY jobs around the home. Or you could get the children involved, personally, I wouldn’t with mine as they are a little too young and would just create havoc, but older children may love helping out with some of these ideas….

Upcycle

As we can’t get out to the shops at the moment, one of the things you can do is to shop your own home. Do you have an old small table, plant pot, picture frame lying around that you could paint a different colour to make it work with your home?

When we moved into our house we didn’t put any of our pictures up because we knew that we would be renovating it. Since we’ve renovated the house, the picture frames no longer work, and one of the jobs I plan to do is to repaint these, specifically the frames that are for the living room. I’m also intending on painting a few plants pots with some of the leftover paint and paint samples which should hopefully help to tie them back into the decor of the house. It is definitely wise to shop your own home before buying something new.

One of the things you could do is upcycle furniture and I just love this upcycled sideboard that Boo and Maddie has created

Boo and Maddie has plenty of upcycling tips from sideboards, to fireplaces, to lampshades and to mirrors. Image credit Boo and Maddie. 

Snagging and touching up

It’s been nearly a year since our house renovation and extension were finished which means that it has gone through nearly all the seasons of cold and warmth, and I hope that it is nearly settled. Who knows how long that takes? We live on London clay so there is always going to be some movement. One of the jobs that we do need to do is to snag all the areas where small cracks have appeared, caulk these and repaint where necessary. We don’t have many, it’s just an annoying job that needs doing. If you’re in the same boat this is a good opportunity to do these smaller jobs whilst you are at home.

It's been a year since this was nearly finished and we now have a snagging list to work through following the settlement period.

The kitchen extension in our home has some snagging to do following settlement over the past year.

Put up pictures

I mentioned above that we have been terrible at putting up any pictures around the home especially family pics. Which is a little sad as I really need to capture and share these family moments. But now that we are at home for the foreseeable future it’s a great time to do this. If you’re lucky enough to have a printer you could print from home, and some of the online printing services are also still printing. You can order frames from Amazon, but do bear in mind that delivery may be slower than normal. This job is one of the things on my to-do list and it may just be the time I create my stair picture wall.

One of the jobs you can do is to create a gallery wall and this one that Little Big Bell has created is stunning and inspiring

The stunning picture gallery wall up the stairs that Little Big Bell has created.

Paint a room

This really depends on the size of the room, how much time you have on your hands and whether you have the paint, or if you can get the paint. We have plans to paint our loft bathroom as currently it’s a mismatch of lilac (the original colour) and Stiffkey Blue that I didn’t like when it went on. Thinking about it, I should really have finished it off. If you can and want to, paint a room during this lockdown period, it can totally transform the space for you and make you feel like you’ve achieved something if you are in the middle of a house renovation that’s currently on pause.

Also it doesn’t need to be a full room, you could paint a feature wall or colour block half-way up which is what we have just finished in the children’s bedroom. Here the room was already painted in Dulux Polished Pebble and we painted 105cm from the floor in Farrow and Ball Oval Room Blue. The two colours work really well together and it has instantly transformed the room from something quite bland to a room that is fun with impact.

A simple job to transform a room is to paint it. This is our family bathroom and I have plans to decorate our loft bathroom.

Our family bathroom painted in Farrow and Ball Off Block provides inspiration for our loft bathroom. The loft bathroom will be painted in Farrow and Ball Plummet which is part of the same colour pallette as Farrow and Ball Off Black tying the decoration throughout the house together. 

In the children's bedroom we have recently colour blocked up the walls

In the children’s bedroom we colour blocked up the wall to add impact to a fairly boring room. This room was all Dulux Polished Pebble, and the colour block is Farrow and Ball Oval Room Blue. 

Plan your next project

No matter how big or small, now is the ideal time to plan your next project. You could start by looking at Pinterest boards and setting up your Pinterest account, or checking out Instagram for inspiration. You can also create moodboards and start browsing online for fixtures and fittings. It’s a great way to take your mind off what’s happening in the outside world right now, and it also gives you something to look forward to. For us that’s planning the redecoration of our loft bathroom, thinking about how we would panel the back wall of our bedroom, picking out samples for a new runner and carpet for the stairs and landings to replace the brown one, and replacing our front door.

I hope that this blog post has given you ideas of some simple DIY jobs you can do in your home during lockdown. There is plenty you can be getting on with to help move a house renovation project forwards.

Claire x

5 simple DIY jobs to do at home during lockdown

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