My Experience on RTE’s The Big DIY Challenge

I applied and was accepted to be a contestant for the first series of RTE’s “The BIG DIY Challenge” sponsored by Woodies DIY in April 2019. The concept of the show was you had 10 days to start and complete DIY project of your choice.

The project I picked was a full room makeover for our son who was approaching one at the time. The room was the last untouched room in our house, so there was a lot to do. The project would require prep & painting, timber floor and skirting boards, a row of built-in wardrobes with shelves and rails, and most importantly the reading nook, which has a secret.. (its on wheels so we can access the attic space behind it… ok its not a secret anymore, but keep it to yourself!!).

I wanted to document some of the obstacles I overcame when completing the challenge. So here goes!!

Before moving on to the detail here is a slide show of the finished room

Day 1

Friday April 19th 2019 – It was Good Friday and I had the day off work. The project took place around Easter, which was a perfect time for me as my day job is a little quieter over Easter. We started off the day with a trip to Woddies DIY to buy the materials we would need. We had made a trip up the previous weekend so we had a good idea what we needed. We got the timber floor and underlay, all the paint (for the walls, skirting, built in units and table tops), we picked up a rug, bedside lamp, cushions and some other smaller items like rollers and paint brushes.

When we got home it was time to start clearing out the room (which was full of junk). I removed the skirting boards and then started filling the small cracks, once sanded I vacuumed the room and the walls to make sure it was as dust free as possible.

The skirting boards had never been painted, so as I had them removed I sanded them, filled any holes and gave them a coat of undercoat, this would make life much easier when putting them back in place, I did this work in the workshop which was great.

The last job today was draw the outline of the Geometric Giraffe wall art that we copied from one of the prints that would hang on the wall once finished. This took a long time to get right, but i’m happy I took the time to do this early in the project.

Day 2

Saturday April 20th – Today was all about painting, I started by taping off the geometric shapes I wanted on the walls, I then stated with the first coat of paint. I did one coat of each colour before moving on to a second coat.

Once the second coat was dry it was time to remove the tape.. I made a stupid mistake by not buying new tape.. the old tape I used resulted in some of the white paint behind it flaking off. In an attempt to stop this as much as possible I took it off with the aid of a hairdryer, slowly heating the glue while pealing it back bit by bit… I still needed to go back and touch up some areas where the paint did peal off. Day 2 was a long day of painting!!

Day 3

Sunday April 21st – Today was wooden floor day, I had done all of the laminate flooring in our house so I was confident this would be a fast job, however it still took some time to get into the flow. I started by laying out the underlay and then moved onto the floor itself. The floor took much longer than I expected.. Mainly due to a visit from the main man himself and host of the show Mr PJ Gallagher. It was great to meet PJ, we had good crack chatting and he even gave me a hand breaking down some sheets in the workshop.

After the fun of Meeting PJ it was back to work finishing the floor, and then onto refitting the skirting boards. Once the skirting were on I caulked around the tops and edges. The last job on Sunday night was to give all of the skirting and the door a coat of white satin wood paint. A long day, but the room really started to come together at this point, even though it was really early in the project.

Day 4

Monday April 22nd – Today was Easter Monday so I was still off work. Today was a workshop day, I wanted to get as much as possible done today with the built in units. I had a sketch of the units and I knew what measurements I needed to achieve. I started by breaking down the 8 x 4 sheet goods with my Track saw. Once they were broken down to approximate size I then moved on to making them to the exact size and ensuring they were perfectly square, once done I was left with a pile of sheets about 20 pieces high, this was pretty overwhelming as I knew the next thing to come was Iron on edge banding… it felt like I had a million miles to do!!

I created a jig on my bench where I could rest the sheets while i was edge banding, this made the job much much quicker than I could have hoped for so it wasn’t all that bad!!

During the day I also took some breaks from the workshop and started painting the geometric giraffe on the bedroom wall, there were 7 colours in it, so it was good to do it bit by bit throughout the day, allowing each colour to dry before moving onto the next.

In the evening I started to assemble some of the cabinet carcasses, I got the two smaller ones done, but left the bigger ones for the next day. Before finishing up for the day I made a quick base which the units would sit on in the bedroom this lifts them off the ground and creates a plinth. I was delighted with how much I achieved in just 1 day!!

Day 5

Tuesday April 23rd – Today was a regular work day, so I needed to be in work – I got up extra early and made a start in the workshop before heading to work. I assembled the last two carcasses and I also started to break down the MDF sheets that would become the cabinet doors and reading nook front to rough size. I got all of this done before going to work so I was very happy with this!

It was nice to be back in work, sitting on a chair. I don’t think I sat down for more than 5 minutes for the previous 4 days!!

Once I was back from work that evening it was time to get going again! I started by trimming down the doors and reading nook front panel to the correct size. I then moved onto marking out the circle that I needed to cut out for the front of the nook, I marked it and cut it.. but quickly realised I had marked it out too quickly and it was wrong, I had to start again.. thankfully I had just enough wood to do it again. This time I marked it out slower and ensured it was correct… I should have remembered “Measure twice, cut once“ but under this deadline every minute counts!! Once the doors were the correct size I routed out the door pulls and drilled in the holes for the hinges.

I was really under the gun at this point in time, I could see time slipping away, and I could see how much I needed to get done in the remaining time. If I didn’t have a time crunch this would have been more than enough work for one evening, but instead of finishing I started on sanding everything and gave everything a coat of white undercoat. By the time that was done it was really late, but just as I was about to turn the lights off for the night I remembered that I had a red bed that I needed to paint as well, thankfully I didn’t wash the brush… so instead of finishing up I brought the bed into the workshop and started to undercoat that. Finally it was time for bed, and at this point I was totally shattered!!!

Day 6

Wednesday April 24th – Again, another work day, before heading to work I popped into the workshop to check out my previous nights work, and man was I happy I burnt the midnight oil… I got so much done the previous night I really put me back in a positive place again.

After work it was back out to the workshop. Before moving on to tonight’s main goal which was to sand everything and get the first coat of finish paint on, I needed to free up some space. The assembled units for the wardrobes were still in the workshop and I needed to get them inside. Thankfully my Dad was on hand to help me lift these in and get them up my really awkward stairs, thanks Dad!!!

Once the units were in, we lifted them onto the base/plinth I had made, they were just sitting in place and I really wanted to start fitting them as this was a much more appealing job then the one waiting for me in the workshop.. However back out I went and started to sand everything. Once sanded I started painting the backs of all the doors first, I have these really handy plastic painters pyramids which allow you to flip over the work piece (it then rests on the tops of the pyramids) which then allows you to paint the other side, so I was able to paint both sided in one go. Once these were done I moved onto painting the bed, and once that was done it was time to call it a night, I couldn’t to anymore, the workshop was full and I needed to wait for paint to dry before I could move onto anything else. It was still a late night, but not as bad as the previous night!!

Day 7

Thursday April 25th – I had planned on giving everything a second coat of paint this evening, but before heading to work for the day I checked on the paint, to my horror it was still really sticky… (I used oil based paint, which was a mistake considering the deadline!)

When I came home from work I had a major decision to make… The paint was dry, but not dry enough to sand and apply another coat, the coverage with just one coat of paint was surprisingly good (on top of the undercoat). With the time I had left I really couldn’t afford another 2 days to do another coat of paint and allow it to dry. At this point I decided that one coat would just have to do.. I could always come back and give them another coat at a later point.

With that decision made I moved onto making the reading nook, I had the sides made and roughly assembled. I started cutting bracing and then screwed them to make the curved seat, I then lined it with white flexi hardboard before putting a back and wheels on the unit. It was so cool to be able to lay in it myself and imagine the time our son would enjoy in it for years to come.

Day 8

Friday April 26th – Full steam ahead!!! I took a days holidays today, it was time to make that count! The main priority today was to start getting all the woodworking bits together and start making them into the built in units they needed to be.. I started by lining up the 3 units that would be fixed to the wall, I levelled them up and fixed them in place, once they were solidly in place I began hanging the doors. Next up I needed to get the reading nook upstairs.. it was really heavy, I have to thank my awesome Camera Man Ed for stepping in and helping me lift this up the stairs, once this was in I added the foam which we covered with a duvet cover just to see how it all looked, and it looked awesome!! I was so excited to see it coming together.

The next job for the day was very tedious, and there was multiple parts too it, I needed to fill in around all the gaps around the units with filler pieces and plinths, this was lots of measuring, cutting, measuring again and cutting again, once fitted I then filled around these with a decorators filler which gave it a really nice finish. The hardest part to do was around the reading nook, because it needed to look like it was fully built in, but then also needed to roll out without catching, this took a while to do, but with patients and persistence I got it looking really good in the end.

Day 9

Saturday April 27th – Today we had a friends Wedding in Killarney, we had booked to stay in the hotel for the night. Obviously I knew this was coming, and I had built this into my schedule which I created before starting the project. This was the main reason I took the Friday off work, I wanted to get as much as possible done on Friday so I could relax and enjoy the wedding knowing that I was on schedule, which I was thankfully. The wedding was fantastic and we had a brilliant time!

Day 10

Sunday April 28th – This was it, the last day – By the time we were back from the wedding it was around lunch time, it was time to crack on with the finishing jobs. I started by hanging bookshelves beside the reading nook, we dressed the bed, hung up little buckets that store some colouring pencils and crayons. I put up the curtain rail, hung the curtain and net curtain, I then hung up the pictures and fitted the window blind.

It was about 6pm and I needed to be finished by midnight, but one thing I had missed was a bedside table and little art desk. They weren’t really important to the overall design but they would have added something to it. We planned on bringing in a locker from another room if we needed to, but I wasn’t happy with that in the end. At 6pm I started to make two tables!!

Out to the workshop, using some scrap MDF I cut out two triangles, one large and one small, I sanded these and rounded over the edges. I had some circular dowel for another project I was planning, so I cut these down to make legs, I rounded one end of the leg and cut the other at an 5 degree angle, I lined up the legs, drilled a pilot hole in through the top and fixed the legs in place. In the space of a few hours I gave the tops a coat of undercoat, and one coat of paint (water based!!) I ended up using a hair dryer to dry them before taking them inside. Once these were inside we fluffed up the cushions put the bedside lamp on the table, placed some nice bits and pieces around the room and I was FINISHED!!!

I took some pictures of the finished room and sent in these before midnight. The emotion my wife and I felt when it was done was overwhelming, knowing that all this hard work was for our son felt amazing. I still cant believe how much I got done in 10 days, I would never have done this in such a short period of time without the Big DIY Challenge.

The Show..

It felt like a lifetime waiting for the show to air, and I had to wait until episode 4 to see my project!! The show was extremely fast paced, they showed between 5 & 7 projects during each 25 minute episode. I got a total of 5 minutes of screen time, you would think its impossible to edit 10 days of work into 5 minutes but they did it. Editing so tightly obviously lost a lot of the detailed processes involved, buy I totally understand its unrealistic to show all of these details considering the shows pace. I just hope people understood how much work was really involved.

We were so nervous before the show aired as we had no idea how it would be edited or how we would come across on screen. In the end we were delighted with the show, and the judges had some really positive and supportive comments. As soon as the show finished our phones were hopping all night, getting phone calls, texts, whatsapp messages, Instagram DMs and Facebook messages from friends, family and neighbours, but also from people I haven’t seen for many years which was lovely. It was great to have this experience as honestly it made me feel confident in my ability as a maker and DIYer, which is something I can struggle with at times.

The Final

Thankfully we didn’t have long to wait for the final, as it was just 2 weeks later during episode 6. The final began showing the short listed projects and the overall winner for the best outside project. Following that they showed the shortlisted projects for the best inside project…… and thankfully I was one of the final 3! A few short minutes later.. (drum roll please)….

I was announced as the winner of the Best Inside Project category, I was overjoyed to have come this far, and to have won my category. I didn’t win the overall prize of €10,000 which I was disappointed with since I was so close, however being the best inside project is still great and I am delighted to have had such an amazing experience.

Thank you to Woodies DIY, RTE, the Production team at Vision Independent Productions and my Camera Man Ed Godsell for allowing me to have such a cool and rewarding experience!

Nick O’Donoghue