20 Hilarious DIY Disasters

In the garage of our first home, we had a swing-up door. One day, I decided to replace the springs, so I opened the door and propped it up with a piece of scrap timber.

The old springs were stretched out and not hard to remove. But I couldn’t stretch the new ones enough with the door open and had to grab the timber to let it down.

Crikey! The door was so heavy it crashed down and sent me sliding on my bum across the floor. Luckily, I only had bruises on my backside and scraped elbows.

John Gray

A few times a year, my wife Kellie and I climb onto our roof to blow off the leaves that have accumulated, as well as clean the skylights.

I put up the ladder and go first, blowing off debris while she rakes and cleans below. She then joins me with a hose and cleaning supplies, and we work as a team.

The last time, the hose got tangled with the ladder and sent it to the ground. The skylights were sealed, we had no phone and the neighbours weren’t about. Then I had the idea to lasso the ladder.

After several goes, I hooked a ladder rung with the sprayer handle and pulled up the ladder.

Dan Brown

The garage roof trim had come loose, so I hooked up my nailgun to the air compressor, got on a ladder and nailed the piece back up.

While I was at it, I decided to fill the joint as well. I put a new caulk tube in my air-driven caulking gun, got on the ladder and placed the nozzle in the corner of the gable.

I pulled the trigger and the tube exploded, covering me, the garage, the shrubs and my car with caulk.

I hadn’t adjusted the air pressure setting when I changed from my nailgun to the caulking gun. Caulk is hard to get out of your hair.

John Vollmer

I got up early one day last summer to paint the gable end of the house before it got hot. A group of variegated aucuba japonica bushes, my wife’s favourites, were growing below.

To protect them from drips, I draped them with a plastic drop sheet. After five hours, I was finished, so I pulled the plastic off the bushes to find they looked like they’d been hit by a flame thrower.

The plastic had created a solar tent, overheating and killing them. Several hundred dollars later, the new bushes are doing fine.

Dwight Covington

The 3.7m hallway in our house that led to the dining room served no purpose, so we decided to remove the wall to enlarge the living room.

I said I could do it over a long weekend and began to demolish the wall. By bedtime, it was down and the debris bagged. I went to bed and awoke to a bowl-shaped floor.

Stepping gingerly across it, I ran downstairs to find that the living room ceiling had sagged 150mm. Turns out I’d removed a load-bearing wall.

As we raced off to get jacks, I sheepishly told my wife I’d need more than three days to finish.

Paul Grisson

To free up floorspace in my kid’s bedroom, I made a mattress box. I hung one side from the ceiling joists with chains and screwed the other side to the wall studs.

To show my sceptical family it was safely hung, I hopped up on it and started jumping about.

As my family watched, the box pulled loose from the wall, dropping me straight down and dumping me out onto the floor. The screws had pulled right out.

I patched up the wall and attached the box with longer screws, but my family never lets me forget.

Gary Havens

While tearing down an old shed, I noticed there were bees flying about. But I kept going until I’d finished. There was one last piece of plyon the ground, so I used the claw of the hammer to lift it up.

It was then that the bees came out of the ground. I dropped the ply and ran, but a bee was gaining on me. My instinct was to wave my hands to ward it off, but I forgot I was holding the hammer.

The emergency room doc was laughing so hard he had a tough time keeping the stitches straight as he worked on the gash above my eyebrow.

Norman Bullock

Having just moved to a new rural residence, my friend needed to install a mailbox near the road.

He bought a 1800mm tall post and mounted the mailbox on one end of the post, then dug a 600mm deep hole, figuring his mailbox would be at the perfect height.

He lifted the post over his head and thrust it into the hole, but with all his calculating, he’d forgotten that the 1800mm would become 1200mm as the post went into the hole.

As a consequence, the protruding mailbox came down on his head.

And although the blow nearly knocked him out, his first instinct was to check if anyone was watching.

<i>Charles Beaman</i>

Recently, I was working in my garage making moulding for my screen windows.

The garage just happens to be where I store my screens in the winter, right behind my tablesaw.

As I was ripping strips of wood, a small piece jammed and the saw kicked it back fast and furiously.

I was out of harm’s way, but my stack of screens wasn’t so lucky.

The chunk of wood shot through six screens before coming to a stop.

I now have a really big repair project.

<i>Joe Magee</>

After hours of testosterone-enriched planning, I started building my garage man cave.

I installed cabinets with workbenches, storage units, air filtration, a dust collection system, and even a heater.

Because of the low ceiling, I installed recessed lighting so my custom hand-carved garage door would roll up unobstructed.

On the first day of spring, I rolled up my old garage door, as the new one hadn’t arrived, and started working in my new man cave.

After about 15 minutes, I smelled smoke and realised my garage door was smouldering.

I found scorched spots where my recessed lights were burning the door.

I’m just glad my custom door hadn’t been installed.

<i>Wade Clary</i>