What do you do with all the leftover paint you have when you move house and have to do up all the rooms? I have the answer for you my friends. You may need to invest in a couple of little pots of different coloured paint, but why not try making your own abstract art using the colours you’ve already painted the walls (this will work if you’ve not just done the whole house magnolia!) and by adding a few dashes of complimenting colour such as magenta, electric blue and yellow to the mix. Abstract art is best when just thrown together so try dripping paint over a large canvas, maybe using household objects to move it around the canvas slightly and also try flicking paint over it to create splashes. It’s up to you how it looks but it’s an excellent way of getting some original art into your new place and having a bit of fun whilst you’re turning the house into a home.

DIY has always been traditionally a man’s game, however with the advancement of everything relating to women and the increasingly impressive development of the manly ‘feminine side’ it was only a matter of time before the roles reversed. I have found that most of my female friends are assembling their own IKEA side tables, doing their own hoover repair and even getting under the hoods of their own cars to try and sort out all manor of issues I don’t even want to think about! It’s not to say that all men have stopped being ‘men’, however when my car battery died over Christmas outside work it was myself and a female friend who managed to jump it from her car while all the guys stood around looking useless and probably feeling pretty pathetic. Have you seen those ‘pretty useful tools’ which have floral handles? I’ve got a hammer, tape measure, stapler, scissors and bottle opener and they look amazing in my garage alongside the pots of paint in varying colours which I bought to brighten the place up and have never used because I can’t be bothered to paint. “oh boys…!”

Say you’ve got a favorite pair of shoes that you would never find again or that were too expensive to replace. Say these shoes get scratched, scuffed or get a chunk taken out of the heel on a night out. You would be upset right? Many people don’t know what to do about this and would possibly never wear them again or throw them out. Not me, because all is not lost. For black and brown shoes or boots the shoe repair place can sort them. For different colour leathers, get down to your local hardware shop and find some miniature matte waterproof paint pots in the right colour. All you need to do is clean the area and paint a little of the paint onto the area that is damaged. This may not take them back to perfect condition but it will definitely make it look a lot better and unless you look closely you’d never know.

I was watching Michael McIntyre’s Live and Laughing the other night, and one of his sketches was hilarious and really made me think about people’s DIY habits. It was the sketch about the ‘man drawer’ and in it he goes on to describe the kinds of things men of this day and age tend to keep to make them feel manly. There are usually lightbulbs in the mandrawer along with batteries of indeterminate life scattered throughout There are also usually keys from homes they don’t live in anymore, stocks of lightbulbs and allen keys which remind the men of the various products they have bought from Ikea and assembled with the help of a guide that comes with the perfectly cut pieces of wood which just need slotting together. In my Dad’s day people used to make things from raw materials, cutting down pieces of wood, sanding them, painting them and creating furniture that will last a lifetime. Now all you need to do is buy whatever you want flat packed and assemble it yourself. It should be called ‘AIY’ for assemble it yourself!

We all complain about work, however when you have to take your holidays and there is no-one else off work it becomes a bit boring. I am really climbing the walls at the moment as I have got a week off before the end of the month (we all have to take our holidays before the end of March) and no-one is around! This is the perfect time to do all those housy things I’ve been putting off and putting off with the thought “I’ll get round to it”. You never do, however if you force yourself and take the initiative to use your days off to become a domestic god or goddess you’ll thank yourself. Today is for planning and shopping for paint and tomorrow will be for cleaning the banisters and windowsills. I will paint them the day after and then it won’t need doing for another few years!