B&Q

B&Q is not the sort of place I chose for a day out but there are times when the DIY can’t be ignored any longer and I have to set my mind to those nasty, niggly tasks. When those days arise it’s handy to have several large DIY chains in the vicinity but I tend towards this particular branch because I have always found the staff helpful and they have never laughed at my stupidity (yet)

Picture the scene.
7:30pm and I am locking the front door. I turn the key and it sticks! So what do I do? I turn the key harder. To which the whole lock gives in to my superior manliness and the key turns.
Ah. The key also keeps turning when it shouldn’t!
Erm. Some how and I don’t know how. The front door lock has disintegrated! Oops!
I look at the time and panic. Yes, I have a big butch German Shepherd to protect me but I start work at 6am and I daren’t leave the house unlocked as that would void the house insurance.
I dive straight onto the Internet and find that good old B&Q are open until 9pm.
So I quickly remove the old lock so I can do a size comparison (no jokes about men being concerned about size please. I just wanted to know the new one would fit in the hole! Oh please! Shush!!) and off I dash.
I hate starting projects near closing time because should it all go wrong and I need more parts/​advice then the store will be closed.
But at least I know that it will still be open after I finish work should I need to go back.
I grabs a hold of a B&Q dude when i arrive and shows him the lock that has mysteriously broken and he was able to show me one that was almost the same.
So after some hammerin’, chiselin’, screwin’ (don’t start!) and plenty of good old fashioned Yorkshire swearin! The lock is replaced.
Thanks for the advise and late opening hours B&Q.

Now that my boyfriend and I have finally moved into a rented house for just the two of us it seemed like an appropriate time to purchase so terribly exciting items, such as a lawnmower. Oh yes, we were quivering with anticipation, I can tell you!
So, since Homebase hadn’t come up trumps we decided to navigate over to B&Q to see if they fared any better. Turns out they did! We managed to find a reasonably cheap mower for £60 which does actually mow the lawn. It’s nothing special, and so I have learned that when it comes to such gardening equipment you do actually get what you pay for!
The hunt was a little more than frustrating, since we were wandering around for at least fifteen minutes trying to find someone to help us. Apparently asking at the paint section is fruitless since the chaps over there only know about paint. The idea that they would able to, say, check that a particular mower was in stock, is obviously a foolish notion. Nope, what kind of paint rollers they specialise in would have been the only sort of question which that autobot, *sorry*, bloke could have answered!
Tsk, B&Q, tsk tsk. Bit useless. Bit annoying.
Nevertheless, we left there about £100 lighter, stocked with a fair machine to refresh the lawn and a lovely wee olive tree, bay tree and lily plant. Job done!

B and Q is the biggest DIY store of them all. The branch I visit is the one in here as that is my local one in the city. B and Q offer some good prices for their DIY items on sale and also offer some fab service.
The service here is really good as they have more than plenty of staff around the store to guide around to the different sections.

This B&Q has many things going for it:
1) It is next door to the best Burger King in Leeds
2) It sells everything you didn’t want to buy at IKEA because it’s too expensive, much cheaper
3) The staff are very very helpful.
I went here for some coax to sort out my freeview and I ended up buying a humungous pot plant aswell, and it came to £49. The lovely young checkout boy (I’m not a weirdo, he was only about 16, so he counts as a boy, he was young, and he was lovely for the reason I’m about to explain) told me that if I spent over £50 I could get 15% off, so I grabbed some batteries for £3.99. He then swapped them for some B&Q own brand ones that were £1.99 and said I didn’t need to spend that much, and it saved me nearly £8. Nice one B&Q person! Woo!
Also I like it here cos it’s MASSIVE.