TTA top tip - GSI not DIY

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Can you remember when you were young; just bought your first home; no responsibilities; lots of energy? You’d come home from work and spend each evening and weekend fitting a new kitchen, making curtains or decorating the hall stairs and landing. That was when the buzz words were Do It Yourself, everyone was at it and the DIY multiples were the fastest growing businesses in the country. In 2007 when we all have less time, more responsibilities, more money and our houses are worth four times as much as we ever imagined way back then, it’s no longer DIY but GSI – Get Someone In. However good you are at DIY you will be doing a job for the first time that someone else has spent a lifetime learning how to do properly. You can always tell an amateur job from a professional one; and that’s the key; if you are going to Get Someone In make sure that someone is a professional. Take tiling: a plumber isn’t a tiler, a painter and decorator isn’t a tiler, a kitchen fitter isn’t a tiler and that nice bloke someone introduced you to in the pub probably isn’t a tiler either.

When you want a professional tradesman check out their trade organisation; with tiling it’s The Tile Association. The Tile Association has over 750 company members across the UK. TTA checks out any tile retailer, fixer or tile fixing company wishing to join their ranks. It checks their experience, abilities, track record and financial health. Fixers have to provide customer references, have their work checked out or be recommended by an existing fixer member. Would you service your own car; cut your own hair; educate your children yourself? The next time you think about DIY first work out how long it will take you (about three times as long as a professional), how much per hour you earn and how much your house is worth then Get Someone In – you’re worth it! You will find the contact details for the companies illustrated in the directory on the TTA website at www.tiles.org.uk

If you like the tiles in our illustrations, you will find the contact details for the companies in the directory