A few years ago I bought my first flat. It's a good sized property that was in need of some modernisation. It was perfect as I was looking forward to the challenge of doing some DIY. That was before I realised that I was hopeless at DIY. I've gotten a bit better at it but it was a steep learning curve. Installing a new kitchen was never something I was going to attempt to do but I was willing to try my hand at doing the tiling and flooring. I'm now happy with my kitchen but there were some ups and downs along the way. Here are just some of the things that I learned along the way.

I used to get calls all the time from kitchen and conservatory companies (even though I'm on the first floor). Here are some of the tactics they would use.

One of the call centre operatives would call and ask if it was okay for one of their colleagues to call later to do some market research questions. I would say yes to get them off the phone. Later the colleague would call up and say "I was asked by my colleague to give you a call" which was a blatant lie. I don't know why they thought this would work. It didn't.

Another tactic was for the company to call up and tell me I had won a free kitchen design session at my home. If we bought a kitchen we would possibly be featured in their before and after magazine and get the whole thing free. Fantastic I foolishly thought. We're looking to buy a kitchen so what do we have to lose by getting a quote and a design session? That was before the salesman arrived. After he did a quick sketch of our kitchen, telling me his son had the same name as me and getting stuck into our tea and biscuits we were getting on well. He then told us the price which was enormous. However, five minuted later after explaining that he owned part of the company and could tell some porkies on the order form we could now get the kitchen for a third of the starting price. It was now looking more promising.

My wife and I left the salesman for five minutes to discuss it. We quickly did a search for the company name online and we were very amused to see some shocking reviews of the company and to read about the salesmans pitch being delivered nearly word for word to other customers. Including the part about the son having the same name as the customer. We turned down the sale at which point the salesman pretty much stormed off in a huff. So my first thing I learned is not to let random sales people in.

We went to one of the big chains to answer our two biggest kitchen questions. How long would it take and how much would it cost? The sales woman nonchalantly told us we would have to wait around four months and that the price of installation was pretty close to the price of materials. We ended up going with a local company through a friends recommendation. We got a great looking kitchen for a still expensive but far more reasonable rate. Second thing I learned is avoid the big chains.

After the installation I thought that the kitchen was near enough finished. I once again overestimated my DIY ability and it wasn't completely finished until a couple of years later.

Once the kitchen was installed that was just the beginning. Tiling and flooring weren't included in the price so that was left to me. Once I figured out how to cut the tiles that was actually a lot of fun to do.

The flooring on the other hand was not a labour of love. As I put laminate tiles down on the floor I had to leave room on each side for expansion and contraction. This meant that the space had to be covered up with strips of laminate beading which looks okay but could be better. In hindsight I probably would have had the floor done first so that the kitchen units sat on top. The last thing I learned was that it could be more cost effective in the long run to just pay a professional.