Renovation: DIY or Hire Out?

Here’s a few quick thoughts about home renovation. There is a huge DIY home renovation culture out there, and even if you know better to hire out for electrical or plumbing, you still might be tempted to hang the drywall or install the tiles for your next home renovation. If you already have these skills, you will probably know how long it will take, what it will cost, and be able to do the job well. But if you don’t have the skill, you may find yourself making a lot of mistakes, because you run into problems during your renovation that you don’t know how to fix. Then your timeline gets blown and you either give up and walk away, or sacrifice quality or time to just get it finished. Trust me on this one, as a real estate agent I constantly see homes where the renovation is not done, or not done that well at best.

The fact is that most people are very unaccustomed to attaching monetary value to their time and this is one of the most important aspects of creating a great lifestyle. For everything you do, you need to pay yourself the time it takes to do it, because your time must have value, because wouldn’t you rather be spending that time with family or friends? If you added up the hours it takes to do a project and paid yourself accordingly, are you really saving all that much over having a professional do it faster and better than yourself?

Now, if you love home renovation, and you are looking at this as a learning experience, then you are gaining value out of it because you are willing to take the time to learn a new skill. But if you have a project that needs to get done, you’re not sure how to do it yourself, and are only considering doing DIY to save a few bucks, think again; it might cost you more in time, stress and money, than you thought.