Course in home improvements

Press, 11 February 1988, Page 32

Course in home improvements

Nearly everyone, Having bought a house, wants to change it in some way. This can mean anything from touching up a bit of paintwork to making major structural alterations.

This is all very well if you know what you are doing, but for those who haven’t the confidence to pick up the nearest mallet and start gleefully laying into the living room wall, the Christchurch Polytechnic has come up with the answer.

Over the last few years they have received a

number of calls from people wanting a course in the basic techniques of home improvement. To meet this demand, they are beginning a home handyman course in the near future. The course will cover everything from tool sharpening to the replacement of weatherboards and exterior trims.

Using portable electric tools and the polytechnic’s fixed woodworking machinery, you can learn how to do mitring, architraves, and moulding, how to scribe for skirtings and

weatherboards, the techniques of construction priming, how to make window sashes and basic cupboards.. The polytechnic envisages that each student will come in with the measurements for a cupboard they wish to make, and for the price of the materials involved they will be able to take it home with them when finished. There is an enrolment charge of $152. If you do not take any of the things you make away with you, there is no further charge.

Otherwise, you pay for your materials. The course will run for 12 three-hour sessions every Tuesday night between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Enrolments can be made at the Sullivan Avenue branch of the polytechnic. The last session of the course has been set aside for students to ask their tutor about their own individual renovation problems. The course is open to anyone and everyone, and while experience is definitely not necessary, enthusiasm is a must.

The polytechnic hope that the course will be an opportunity ! for people who have not got confidence in their own abilities to get some hands-on experience before they go home and try out their new-found knowledge on the real tbing. . - The course will begin as soon as there are enough enrolments to fill the places. For those uninitiated in the arts of the home handyman, it may mean the difference between improving a home and demolishing it.