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The Homebuilding and Renovating Show will be at Sandown Park in Surrey 29-30 June

DIY Doctor will have a stand at the show and we would love to see you there. So if you fancy coming down to Sandown Racecourse in Surrey at the end of June then we are giving away free tickets to the show, just click on the banner above. Feel free to tell your friends, the more visitors the merrier!

DIY Clinic: The Doctor will be Taking Your Questions

Mike Edwards does our stage presentations at the larger shows and many of you will have seen him presenting before (he is also the face of the DIY Doctor You Tube Channel). At the Sandown Homebuilding and Renovating Show he will be running two clinics a day to answer any building and DIY problems you may be having.

Clinics will run on the Saturday and Sunday at these times:

11.00 am to 1.00 pm
2.00 pm to 3.30 pm

If you want to book your free 15 minute appointment to see the DIY Doctor, then please contact us stating your name and your preferred appointment time, or you can take pot luck on the day by vising us at stand 207.

Countdown to the Show

OK, so it is not quite as exciting as Christmas, but we always look forward to meeting everyone at the Homebuilding and Renovating Shows, so we have set up a countdown monitor to count the ‘sleeps’ till we go. If you want to find out more about the show, including who else will be exhibiting and which celebrities and experts will be giving talks and demonstrations, then go to the Homebuilding and Renovating Website For more information, including how to get there and show opening times.

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DIY Doctor disputes the rumours that DIY is a falling market in the UK

British People Love DIY – or We Do When the Sun Shines

The media is banging on about how interest in DIY is falling in the UK, the latest of these reports comes from the London Evening Standard who are convinced that the DIY universe consists of the big sheds like B&Q.

In James Thompson’s article the chief executive of Kingfisher Group, owner of B&Q and Screwfix among other UK home related businesses, admitted a drop in profits after a wet spring has impacted their sales in the last quarter, but he doesn’t see this as a long term decline and neither does DIY Doctor.

What we think is that British people are as keen as ever to look after their properties, but they are being careful about how they spend their money to do this.

Also we like a bit of sun to spur us into action when it comes to DIY, statistics show that DIY spending follow weather patterns, with warmer weather encouraging higher spending on Home Improvements.

Consumer Patterns are Shifting Due to the Economic Squeeze

DIY Doctor has noticed that our readers are switching away from out-of-town stores and are getting creative about upcycling, and reusing products to save money on jobs around the home. This inventiveness accounts for a lower DIY spend because DIYers are using their initiative and finding a way to re-purpose items rather buying new materials.

Many Home Improvers and self-builders are looking for individual or older items in reclamation yards, and car boot sales, buying from eBay to bag a bargain, and using Freecycle, swap sites and Preloved to make use of something that is no longer wanted by someone else.

The other shift in consumer patterns is the way people are utilising the internet to source tools and materials through online shops, which deliver to their home rather than trekking out to the DIY sheds. Screwfix offer great customer service with next day delivery options and a simple returns service so where B&Q may be losing with one hand they are gaining on the other.

Customers Begin to Favour Knowledge Over Size

We have also noticed an underlying interest in the specialist knowledge available in local hardware stores. Just as Mary Portas is championing the high street, and the slow food and local food markets are all discovering renewed interest by consumers who want to buy from local suppliers who are engaged and experienced, and we are convinced that the DIY market is starting to look around for suppliers with honest, experienced knowledge, who can give advice on tools and materials and how to use them for each job the Home Improver is taking on.

After all who wouldn’t want to be served by a man in brown overall?

Fork Handles anyone?

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Fitting a new kitchen is one of the most popular home improvements according to a survey of homeowners undertaken in April.

A new survey by Opinion Matters carried out this April on behalf of Anglian Home Improvement company, has found that while people in the UK are cutting back on their luxury budgets such as expensive holidays and even on their food shopping, they are still spending money on Home Improvements.

This is interesting when much of the media is trying to convince us that DIY and Home Improvement is DIYing out in the UK (sorry about the pun!). Check out our reply to the Stylist Magazine article from last weeks blog.

However it is not surprising when you consider that our home is the biggest investment that most of us will make in our lifetime, and so it makes sense to look after it. Treating our homes to a ‘facelift’ by installing a new kitchen or bathroom is seen as better value for money than a fortnight in the sun.

After all if you build a conservatory you can harness the power of our own sun while sheltering from the brisk wind that often accompanies it in the UK.

The Most Attractive Home on the Street

Making sure their house was not the least attractive house on the street was shown to be a big driver for many homeowners when it comes to improving their property. In fact many homeowners cited a desire to have the most attractive house on the street when it came to spending their money on home improvement projects. So rather than keeping up with the Jones’ they actually want to be the Jones’s.

Melanie McDonald, Head of Marketing and Communications at Anglian Home Improvements, says, “The survey proves that we’re a house proud nation and shows that keeping our homes looking attractive remains a priority for many people in Britain.”

The survey also reports there was an average annual spend of £2,706, with one in eight homeowners spending over £5,000 on home improvements in the last couple of years. Half the people questioned were planning to fit a new kitchen or bathroom (or would like to do so), and a quarter would like a conservatory.

Do it Yourself, or Do it For Me?

DIY Doctor has plenty of guides and information on undertaking DIY tasks and also how to employ tradesmen for any Home Improvement tasks that you want someone else to do. Head over to the projects section on our main website.

You will find plenty of information on fitting a kitchen, why not start off with some advice on planning a kitchen. If you want to install a cloakroom suite we have a video tutorial that will help you with how to do that.

You may decide to get a tradesman in to do part of the job, while you do the finishing off and decorating. For instance you could employ a plumber to fit the bathroom and you can then lay your own tiles. See DIY Doctors video guide on how to set out a bathroom for tiling on our DIY Doctor’s YouTube channel, and then go to our find tradesmen section on the main site to find a reliable insured tradesman.

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Spring Bank Holiday 2012 Was Hot…But

However we remember Spring Bank Holidays when it was not. It has probably escaped most people’s memory but at DIY Doctor, because we were working, we remember the Spring Bank Holiday of 1984 very well indeed.

It was the coldest, nastiest, wettest Bank Holiday recorded in the last 40 years. Apparently in Hertfordshire it rained for 66 of the 72 hours of the 3-day weekend. Temperatures stayed below 10 degrees c and only the very brave (and stupid) ventured outdoors.

Never Suffer a Cold Bank Holiday Again

DIY Doctor never wants to live through a weekend like that again so we started our plans for DIY sunshine and thirty years later they are complete. Here is the video to prove it! (Click to play.)

Never be caught out on a cold day again. Follow these simple instructions to make your own DIY sunshine and you will be forever tanned and happy.

Don’t forget the sunscreen though!

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Your garden makeover could include paving, formal planting and a seating area. You could even add a pond or water feature, use an existing hedge for shelter and privacy.

Win a grand for your garden

The Garden Makeover competition to win £1000 is open to any gardener who is in need of a money prize to kick-start their garden landscape ideas, rather than a Chelsea medal
If your garden is a bit of a disaster and you are planning a garden makeover you can head over to

DIY Doctors Gardening Section for some ideas.When you have your plan for your dream garden

you can enter it into MyBuilder.com’s £1,000 garden makeover competition, which will then go to the public vote.

Ryan Notz CEO of MYBuilder.com explains
“At MyBuilder, we’re passionate about helping homeowners find the right tradesman. It’s upsetting when we come across homeowners who don’t have the means to hire a tradesman, so we feel it’s our duty to help out when we can. The hardest part is choosing a winner, which is why we’ve enlisted the public to vote.”

If you want some gardening ideas DIY Doctor has planting ideas for modern gardens, vegetable gardens and gardening for wildlife in our Gardening Section, and here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

For the contemporary garden how about building your own home Cinema, which is a great idea if you like to use your garden for entertaining.

Or if you are considering a landscape garden project what about a rockery? There are ideas for building and planting your rockery garden. Alpine plants are generally easy to care for and building the rockery will help to overcome problems with garden drainage. Some thing competition hopeful Lisa Marie from Sandbach, Cheshire reconises all to well, following the floods last summer.

“Ever since the bad rain we had at the end of last year our garden has been a mud bath. We have 3 children under 5 and as we live on a main road they can’t play in the front garden. We have run out of cash to do anything with it…” Lisa Marie – competition hopeful

If you want a productive garden our gardening section also explains how to build raised beds which are great for vegetable gardening and for gardeners who have reduced mobility.

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