Home Improvement Nightmares That Will Make You Feel Good About Yourself
Home improvement can be a daunting task to embark on. If you didn't hire a professional contractor, there's a lot of pressure on you to not completely mess things up. While sometimes homeowners manage to scrape by without a hitch, other times home improvements end up in complete disaster. Here's a list of the latter that will hopefully give you some self-confidence in your next attempt to fix something on your own.
Fix Doorhandle: Check
Surely, the person that installed this door handle felt a real sense of pride upon completion. They may have even added "handyman" to their Instagram bio so everyone knows that they know how to use a screwdriver. It wasn't until their wife tried to close the door and started yelling down the hall that they realized they had a problem. Most people might have noticed this before they put in the final screws, but not this person. Their self-confidence got the best of them which resulted in a humiliating failure. Chances are, they'll never live this one down.
You're Not Getting Your Security Deposit Back
In the words of legendary naturalist and survivalist Bear Grylls, "Survive, adapt, and overcome," which is exactly what this person did. They saw a problem and instead of working harder they worked smarter and this was the final outcome. Sure, it may not be the most preferred design, but you cannot argue that it doesn't work. This is the kind of setup that you would find at your local fraternity house where the construction management major of the bunch convinced everyone that they had the knowledge and skills necessary to install the door that someone kicked down for fun. Someone's not getting their security deposit back.
We Need More Trees In The Yard
Which came first, the tree or the garage? Not that it really matters, but it would help us to formulate some sort of idea of what was going on in the person's head that was behind this design flaw. Maybe the person that lives here only rides motorcycles or drives a smart car in order to get into their driveway, or perhaps that tree has some significant historical significance. Also, what's the deal with the two empty pots on each side of the garage? We think that there are enough trees on the driveway already, but that's just our opinion.
Where's The Silverware?
We wonder at what point the person building this realized that everything was simply wrong. It seems like it must have been towards the end of the project since it looks essentially complete. This literally makes no sense at all and was probably just a big waste of time, money, and energy for whatever poor soul assembled this sad excuse for a set of drawers. This looks to be in some type of office or classroom, so we hope that there aren't any necessary tools or items in there, because they aren't coming out anytime soon.
A Slight Mix-Up
We think that we can all agree that there is a big difference between tile and roofing material and that they both serve their own individual purpose. Although this house may look more stylish using tiles for the roof, it's safe to say that this was probably an unsafe choice and an even more unfortunate mistake. If a tile ends up cracking, it's going to be a little hot up there trying to repair it, and in the event of an earthquake, you might want to say goodbye to this entire house. There's no telling what other architectural flaws are on the inside. We just hope they have a good insurance policy.
When In Doubt, Duct Tape
What we have here looks like an air conditioning unit that underwent some pretty serious do-it-yourself repairs. We understand that duct tape can provide an extremely convenient and quick repair for a lot of things, but sometimes you might want to call a professional or just buy a new one. Duct tape is typically used to fix small problems that need a temporary solution and is not designed to hold together an entire air conditioning unit. We know these are expensive, but take a hint, it's broken. We're not sure what these people were really going for here, but it doesn't look like it's going to work.
This Is An Accident Waiting To Happen
Nothing says dangerous quite like having an overhang on your house being supported by two weak-looking poles. You'd think that the residents would just cut their losses and just get rid of it rather than risk death every time they come in or out of their house. Then again, maybe these people just like living on the edge and the constant fear they feel every time they walk through the doors makes them feel alive. All we hope is that when this eventually collapsed, nobody was underneath it to learn their lesson.
Fire Safety: Check
Although it may not look the best, whoever the hole cut through these curtains helped to avoid a potential fire in this room. So, even though it may seem that whoever did this wasn't thinking at all, they were at least thinking a little bit. However, is there another hole in the curtains if the curtains are drawn? Because if not, then this whole thing is pretty pointless. We think that at this point, it might just be easier to not have curtains then going through all this trouble and ruining the aesthetics of the room. Clearly, this person isn't an interior designer.
Keeping the Rain Off
Whoever put this contraption together clearly didn't want to get any rainwater on them when they are using their outside stairs. It doesn't really seem worth it to potentially be hit by a falling piece of wood rather than face being dampened by a couple of raindrops. Even if that is the purpose of this makeshift device, it looks like it wouldn't keep out much water anyway. There's a massive gap where the board meets the gate, and the water would just end up funneling down the stairs worse than if it wasn't there at all.
That Should Do It
At least these people will have crutches on-hand when this awning finally comes down. There is a pretty serious balancing act going on considering that the railings that the crutches are standing on are more than an inch wide. All it takes is for one of those crutches to fall and the whole thing is going to come crashing down. is the awning really that important to have? Apparently so for these residents as they are willing to put themselves in harm's way in order to keep it. They won't have anyone to blame but themselves when it finally gives out.
Counter-Intuitive
Nothing makes more sense than almost completely covering up the area where the warm and cold air is supposed to be able to come through. It looks like when they put the tile down they didn't put that into consideration and are going to end up paying the same amount of money for less effective cooling and heating. Hopefully, this is in a less-used room in the house and not somewhere that really needs heat or AC like a bedroom or the living room. At least they were courteous enough to leave a little bit of room for the air flow.
Just A Little A Bit Crooked
What we have here is what looks to be someone that believed they could take care of their own plumbing. They decided to skip the hassle of calling a real plumber and installed this toilet themselves. However, what they didn't know was that if you install the bottom bracket crooked, you're going to end up with a crooked toilet. At the end of the day, it's not the worst thing in the world, yet everyone that uses that bathroom will know that you are nothing more than a novice plumber. Maybe next time it's worth it to just call up the professional.
Questionable Wiring
It looks like whoever put this together has some serious faith in the strength of their tape. All we can wish is that this is even real electric tape, but we're not going to get our hopes up. Also, putting this rather questionable wiring underneath what looks like a water pipe could possibly be catastrophic. We hope that this particular light switch isn't very important because we don't expect it to last much longer. It's also possible that this lightswitch already doesn't work at all but at one point it was kept together by this impressive tape job.
Watch Your Step
Well, this is one way to go about breaking your neck. Even though it looks like there used to be a railing there for protection, it doesn't necessarily make going down these stairs much safer. However, without any railing at all, someone is guaranteed to have a rather painful fall down these spiral steps. Even looking at these stairs can induce a little bit of vertigo which could send someone tumbling down them. If someone doesn't fall down these stairs trying to walk up or down them, then somebody is certainly going fall while trying to install a much-needed railing.
Shave A Little Off The Top
What we have here is someone who tried to find a convenient and organized way to store their hose. At first glance, it looks like a good idea, until you realize that they cut out a portion of a floor joist in order to do so. The floor joists are what's holding up the entire floor from falling down into the basement, so weakening any of them in any way is not the brightest idea. Sometimes you have to ask yourself if it's really worth it, and in this case, it's not. If the floor ends up collapsing right where this hose was installed we know exactly why.
A Dangerous Game Of Jenga
We're going to assume that whoever jerry-rigged this situation is a pretty good Jenga player because they are putting a lot of trust in themselves. This looks to be in a crawlspace underneath a house, and it appears as though these stacked blocks of wood are holding up something pretty important...like the floor of the house. We're not exactly sure how someone should go about fixing this, but something tells us that this isn't the right way. The real question is how they managed to fit all of the wood on top of each other in order to support that beam enough so that it doesn't collapse.
Not The Brightest Idea
We're going to assume that whoever installed this figured that it would be a good idea at the time. This way people don't have to see the toilet paper roll out in the open, and you can keep it where you put all of the unused rolls. However, after installing it, they probably realized that they made a huge mistake. Now people are going to be forced to bend over with their pants at their ankles and attempt to fish out some toilet paper from the bottom cabinet in order to finish up their business. Sometimes, it's important to get a second opinion before you do something like this.
So Close, Yet So Far
So close yet so far is right. By the looks of it, every other piece of tile was installed correctly, and it was just one of them that messed up everything. It really is a shame, because we're sure this was some pretty serious back-breaking labor only to see this happened once you've finished. It also can't be that easy removing one piece of titling and fixing it after all of the cement has already dried. Now, whosever owns this floor has to look at it every single day in their house. Surely guests comment on it everytime they see it for the first time too, so that must be nice.
Just A Little Bit Off
This is a perfect example of why it's important to use a tape measure while doing home improvement. Eyeballing something doesn't always work out because sometimes, a couple of inches means a lot. It was the difference from this faucet being the right distance out of the wall and it hitting the top of the tub like it is. Although some of the water is sure to still end up inside of the tub, a lot of the water is also going to end up spraying and spilling onto the floor which is the last thing that anyone needs inside of their house.
Yes, Those Are Stairs
Although you wouldn't even be able to tell without the railing on the side, those are stairs. Who in their right mind would use this kind of carpet on top of a set of stairs? This is just irresponsible by everyone involved in making this possible. You would think that someone along the way would question the decision-making that went into this, but it appears that nobody did. There have to have been dozens of people that have ended up on the floor because of these stairs and there's a clear reason why. This is a liability and a lawsuit waiting to happen.
