I know there are a number of people who have the skill of being able to renovate their own home or even do mild fix ups. I am really not good with that kind of thing but admire people who do because it can save you so much money doing it yourself rather than paying a contractor.
As much as I wanted to do the renovation work myself, the most I can do is to re-paint the walls. It's too costly to renovate especially if you don't have much skills (carpentry/masonry/etc) to do some of the work yourself. It's also tricky to get a contractor because they sometimes charge you more than necessary just because you don't really know anything about these matters. But of course not all contractors do that and that's why you have to ask around so you can find an honest one. Though most of the time re-painting is all I need to give my house a "new" look. After repainting, I just re-arranged the furniture, add some new decors (painting or other artwork) and it's better than before. I only call the experts when there's really a problem like a leaking pipe/faucet or something wrong with the electrical outlets, something like that.
My husband has been in construction for years and so it has always been our dream to build our own home with our own two hands. However, my brother in law has his builders license and the paperwork and 'approvals' you have to get along the way scares us half to death. Anyone I know who has done a major renovation or built their own home has always seemed to have a 'never ending project' - its like the house is never finished! I am not so proud as to think we wouldn't fall into that trap. For that reason, we have never accomplished our goal. But maybe one day we will. We currently rent a home, and so if we were ever able to purchase one day, it would no doubt be a small, older home that would need lots of renovations. We wouldn't be able to afford to pay people so I may have that dream of a 'never ending project' realized one day! I think doing it yourself does saver money if you have the time to commit to it. I don't think it will save money if a builder has to leave jobs in order to work on his own home (something which has happen to my husbands boss in the past).
I'm still considering whether or not to lay my own carpet. The fees to get it professionally fitted are high, but I still want a very good job done of it. I'm not sure how well it would go if I did it myself. I've attempted before and it didn't go well, but hopefully I've learned a thing or two.
When it comes to renovating a house, I say do what you can and leave the rest to the professionals. Even if it means you have to wait and save up , in the end it will be worth it. There are a lot of classes you can take at your local home stores if there are things you think you may be able to do with some guidance. Danyel
If you have the time and money then why not? You can always get good advice and I have friends who are architects who give me advice. The thing is time, to be able to watch how the workmen do things as well as the planning and to come up with other ideas if things go wrong. Many people go over budget, bit also have impractical ideas. When they can work great, but when they can't you need to step back and find another way to do things. It happened when I was having my home tiled, i wanted it a certain way and had to compromise due to the size of the tiles.
I can do some renovations myself. Or learn how to do something on the web. The hard part is getting the tools to get the job done well. If for example you want to partition a large room, and don't have the tools, instead of buying the them, I'd just a hire a professional to come do the job. Whenever I can avoid incurring such expenses, I prefer to do any fancy renovations myself.
I also wanna learn to renovate my own house, because there are just a lot of things you couldn't say how you would want your house to appear, so the renovation ends up the way I don't exactly intended it, less from what I initially wanted it to be. But the thing is I am scared for now to do it myself, because I still believe that I have to learn that much yet. I am still incompetent that if I did it myself, more renovation would have been needed to get it back to its descent shape.
I think it is a good idea to renovate your own house. Also you can renovate your own with your ideas rather than implementing others idea. Also it can help to reduce the cost of total expenditure. I think it is great experience to renovate your own house.
If you don't have the skill to perform such renovations, then you shouldn't even attempt them. Following a YouTube video for simple projects is fine, but nobody should proceed while relying on the video and not knowing the general steps themselves. You're asking for trouble by doing that, and messing up on a DIY renovation can wind up costing hundreds or even thousands more than paying a professional to do the work would have cost in the first place.
I'm not a handy person but I did learn a thing or two over the years. For now I'm mostly into painting walls - easy task, just time consuming. Still, good money can be saved by doing it yourself. What I want to try next is placing wooden floors in my flat. For a few weeks last year I helped a friend with the flooring at his house, it was a great opportunity to learn a new skill. Now I'm curious how will I manage to do it in my own house, I'll start work in the spring.
