Review: Chix and Mortar women's DIY course
Wednesday, 9 March 2011 2:13 PM
Ele Cooper goes on a women's home improvement course run by Chix and Mortar with one hope: to master the art of wallpapering once and for all...
I have a long-standing love of home improvement. Ever since my first teenage wall-painting project, which had 'interesting' results, few things have made me happier than looking around a room, asking myself 'What could I do to make this better?', and throwing myself into the chosen course of action with borderline terrifying levels of enthusiasm.
The problem is that, despite my eagerness, my DIY endeavours have generally been attempted with anything but optimal levels of knowledge. Decorating-wise, my idea of preparation had (until now) involved spreading a few token sheets of newspaper on the floor, scraping my hair into a ponytail and putting the radio on a suitably sing-along-able station.
So when I wrote a news story about the women's DIY courses being offered by Chix and Mortar, I thought it was about time I upped my game, and promptly booked myself a place on the next workshop.
Course founder Collette Dunkley tells me that she set up Chix and Mortar following a 12-year renovation project in her own home. "As my family grew, I bought the flat above my own, and then after a while I bought the flat above that. I was having to rely so much on tradesmen and things often went wrong.
"Rectifying the mistakes cost a lot of money and, while I didn’t want to do all the jobs myself, I wasn’t even able to instruct the various builders properly because I didn’t understand what they were doing."
Collette, who is a communications expert, decided to investigate women's perceptions of various industries and her research revealed building and DIY to be one of the five least-trusted areas of trade (alongside financial services, car sales, electronics and mobile phone sales).
She believed that, if women understood a bit more about home improvement and building lingo, they would not only become empowered and able to carry out basic tasks themselves, but they'd also feel more in control when hiring others to do jobs for them.
Thus, Chix and Mortar was born. Launched two years ago, it has come a long way since its inception, with every workshop taking a slightly different form depending on what the attendees actually want to learn. For me, the answer is pretty much everything.
And that's how, one Saturday morning, I come to be standing in a slightly chilly sports hall in Isleworth, west London.
Despite my nervous apprehension, Collette has assured me that we'll be in safe hands: the session is being led by Paul, a highly experienced painter-decorator who trained at Selfridges decades ago and who's been beautifying clients' homes ever since.
Before the session begins, I grab a seat next to a woman named Sarah, who tells me, "I've just inherited my parents' house and it's in a terrible state. I can't afford to have it made over professionally so I decided I'd do it myself – the only problem is, I haven't the foggiest where to start."
In fact everyone that I speak to has a different reason for doing the course. One woman cites her partner's attitude to DIY which, put politely, could be described as 'relaxed': "I'd had enough of his vague promises – which he has been making since 1998 – to retile the bathroom, so I decided to take matters into my own hands."
Others have been driven to learn the art of home improvement by more extreme circumstances. Marie, an IT executive, had commissioned a friend to revamp her newly bought property when he offered to give her mates' rates. By all accounts, he left it in a worse state than he'd found it in, and things turned nasty when she pointed out problems and he told her "you get what you pay for". Now, broke and living in a virtually uninhabitable flat, she has no choice but to take time off from her 55-hours-a-week job and sort it out herself.
Lucky, then, that this course exists – or a lot of us would be in real trouble.
Paul kicks things off with wall preparation, showing us how to sand down surfaces and then fill in any dents or holes. Throughout, he peppers his official line of tutoring with insider tips – "Toupret is the best filler on the market and dries in 15 minutes", "Always use P60 to P80 sandpaper and fold it into three so it doesn’t slip around" – and remains perpetually good-humoured, directing the odd bit of banter in his assistants' directions but showing nothing but charm to us students.
Once Paul's demonstration is over, we are sent off to try it out for ourselves. We each have an A-board decked out to resemble a proper wall, complete with window frame and skirting. Our job is to prepare the wall and wood surfaces before painting them using a roller and brush. Though I have to abandon a particularly deep gouge in the wood because, Toupret or no Toupret, the filler simply won't dry in time, I have to say my efforts aren’t half bad.
One thing that surprises me is just how knowledgeable a lot of the women in the class seem to be. While we are assured by Paul that no question is too stupid, and I certainly wouldn’t feel too intimidated to voice whatever inane query popped into my mind, a lot of these ladies already know the lingo and are requesting advice on problems that they wouldn’t even know existed if they weren't already fairly clued-up on the basics of DIY.
This turns out to work to my advantage in the wallpapering half of the day, when we work in pairs. Although Paul has given a comprehensive demo, showing us everything from mixing wallpaper paste ("If you're not buying ready-made, make sure you swirl the water as you pour in the powder so it doesn’t go lumpy") to how to pattern-match, it proves too much for me to remember, and I'm glad to be working alongside someone with a bit more experience. Our team effort results in a relatively professional-looking job, with no air bubbles and only the odd tiny tear where we (well, I) got a bit too enthusiastic with the Stanley knife.
The rest of the girls were going to be learning tiling, plug-changing, basic plumbing and a spot of carpentry the next day, but alas, my brother had already enlisted me to help with the redecoration of his study.
Funnily enough, when I rolled up to his house the next day, he had a 'bad back', so it was left to me and my sister-in-law to hang the paper. Some things will never change.
Chix and Mortar's next courses are running on April 2-3 at Thistleworth Lawn Tennis Club, Isleworth, and on May 14-15 in Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire (subject to numbers). Courses are held wherever there is demand, so if neither of those is convenient, email info@chixandmortar.co.uk and suggest the next course location.
Quote our exclusive discount code, 'ABF', when booking and you'll receive a 20 per cent discount (full prices are £99 for a day or £199 for both days).
For more information, call 07771 886790 or book online at ChixAndMortar.co.uk.
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