There are some of us who feel proud of their DIY skills when we put a shelf up and it is still there a week later, but there is another altogether different breed of DIYers which are sprouting up like mushrooms all over youtube, which make us DIY bumblers look like the amateur cowboys we really are!
Recently we sold some 50mm expanded cork to a chap in central Portugal who knew full well what he wanted and so we dispatched his order to somewhere near Guarda, a fabulously picturesque and wild area deep in the interior of Portugal and increasingly home to buy-a-wreck-and-do-it-up pioneers. Imagine my surprise when my youtube recommendations suggested I watch a video of a chap in Guarda installing some expanded cork roof insulation and it turned out to be this client, Steve Howard. In some ways I was hoping for a good laugh watching him cock it all up and get his mate round to fix his blunders for him, but no, Steve is an artisan for whom the expression DIYer would be a bit of an insult.
He has been living in Portugal for a few years and when one of his huts got burnt down in a fire, he cheerfully set about rebuilding the whole thing, improvising every step with casual aplomb. Once he had built the roof beams, he installed expanded cork for insulation and in this video, he gives a detailed explanation of how to build everything perfectly, accompanied by some beautiful Portuguese sun and some much-loved cats.
Certainly worth a watch, but the DIY bumblers among us will be left to weep with envy at his sure-footed competence and the fact that he is living in such a wonderful corner of the planet! Steve has no affiliation to us (although we might have to do him a special deal on his next order of expanded cork after this!), but please give his video a ‘like’ and a ‘subscribe’ as the kind of artisan work that he does is so valuable to the community of us more humble DIYers. Keep up the good work Steve and best of luck with your project! His youtube channel is here, for more gems…..
