If you are ready to do some renovations to your house, look in your own backyard before calling in the reinforcements. You can save thousands of dollars by working on your home yourself or with a friend. By doing at least part of the work yourself, it will cut your budget cost tremendously. I know that you may be asking how in the heck you’re supposed to do projects when you don’t have the skills. There are some potential solutions or alternatives for this.
Let’s look at some examples of simple interior updates as per www.investopedia.com that will also boost your home value.
· Rejuvenate your walls of your home. Updating some outdated wallpaper or changing colors can make a huge difference in a space.
· Install crown molding. This is a DIY task that is actually much easier than you’d think and it can make a big difference to the look of a room. Some come already painted and you can ask the home improvement store to cut it to size. A nail gun is used to attach it to the wall. It is fairly inexpensive as well.
· Update fixtures. Small changes can make a big difference in the look of a space. Some examples of easy items to change are outlet covers and switch plates, curtain rods, light fixtures, and even door knobs and pulls on cabinets. Consider painting an outdated fixture and then put it back up saving you completely on a new purchase.
· Install ceiling fans. You may need to bring in a professional if you don’t have a current one in place.
· Improve window treatments. It could be vertical or horizontal blinds or curtains. Simple changes can make the room come alive with a low amount of cost. Plantation shutters are a wonderful and beautiful option, but you might need a professional to do that task.
· Revealing hardwoods underneath carpets. In my current home, we have a concrete slab, but we replaced a room with carpet and had hard wood laminate installed. To save money, My youngest and I pulled up (and disposed of) the previous carpet and saved hundreds of dollars. In addition, my daughter (at age 12) learned how easy of a task it was.
· Fireplace help. Wood burning fireplaces can stain and dirty up your surrounding bricks of your fireplace. Cleaning off the soot and Creosote can make a world of difference. An alternative to replacing the surrounding would be to white wash dark brick. It’s very easy to do by mixing ½ paint and ½ water and applying it and wiping off as you go. It is a beautiful option.
· Redo the bathroom floor. This is a perfect job for an introduction into DIY projects. Fairly easy to learn skills.
· Upgrade landscaping or clean up current landscaping. Some new bushes and flowers can give you great curb appeal and doesn’t require a lot of know how to complete. The Home Depot or Lowes can give you advice on where to start.
Habitat for Humanity
You can gain knowledge and experience by volunteering your time on a Habitat for Humanity home. Not only will you gain home construction skills, and home improvement skills, but will also be donating your time to a wonderful cause and help a family. Go to www.habitat.org to find out about the organization and a location near to you. With Habitat for Humanity, you build a house from the ground up including electrical, plumbing, heating and air, and other miscellaneous items. You can learn how to do tile work, put in carpeting, or even install a light fixture. This is true, hands on, practice that you will learn.
Home Improvement Stores
Another avenue to learn about do-it-yourself home improvements is through a hardware store. The Home Depot and Lowe’s both have seminars where you can learn how to do certain things. Seminars are usually held on weekends for a few hours and they teach one topic like tile installation. These are great opportunities to beef up your home improvement skills.
Tutorials
With the invention of the internet and YouTube, it brought a plethora of tutorials about anything you can think of. Need to repair your refrigerator handle? They have it. What about working on the backsplash in your kitchen? Yes, they have that too. If you have any home project (or about anything else you need to figure out as well), YouTube will have a tutorial (or many) to show you how to do it. If you’re good at taking direction and doing it as you go, this can be an amazing option. I have personally used it for countless items.
You Get by With a Little Help from Your Friends
A handy friend or family member is also a great person to seek out. They may be willing to help you out on a project if you in-turn help them out with something they would like to do. You are gaining skills and they are giving and getting help from a friend. Think about it like bartering. You both trade your skills for another. You may even offer to help them first, learn some skills, and then they help you. It’s a win-win for you both. They get an assistant and you have a mentor. Since they may not be a professional, be extremely safety conscious. You don’t want to learn bad habits.
Halves-ies
If you are not lucky enough to have any handy friends and feel that the only option for you is to hire someone, ask if the contractor is willing to reduce the price for any work that you can do. For example, when we decided to renovate our bathrooms, the contractors did the major things like plumbing, moving windows, etc, but we did the tiling and painting and replacement of fixtures. It helped keep our expenses down. If you have a contractor that is willing to use you as their helper, you could learn things and reduce the price. It never hurts to ask. The answer is always no if you don’t ask.
Online Groups
You can go to www.meetup.com for your area as well as local Facebook groups to find other DIY’ers looking to connect. They have a lot of helpful information that you can learn from.
Know Your Limits
DIY projects are a great way to save money, but there are some jobs where a professional should be used. There may be some things where you just don’t have the right tools, know-how, or manpower to tackle. You don’t want to end up hurting yourself, ruining the project, or wasting a ton of money and having to pay a professional to fix the half-assed job that you did. Definitely consider DIY projects, but make sure you’re smart about what you attempt.
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