Go ahead, confess… you’re among friends. You don’t really love the home remodeling experience.
Okay, I hate it. In every home I’ve owned, I’ve done remodeling tasks—some big, some small. A lot of the remodeling was done by me with the help of family members. I’m sure they hated it, too.
Painting
I’ve painted numerous walls, numerous times. In one of the bathrooms in a townhouse I owned, I painted the walls no less than five times in a three year span.
The thing that makes painting difficult for me has everything to do with:
- I’m not patient.
- I refuse to tape off stuff.
- My hands are shaky.
- I hate moving furniture out of the way or disassembling items.
- I’m sloppy. Paint goes everywhere I don’t want it.
- I’m not patient.
And then, it takes me almost as long, if not longer, to clean up the mess I’ve made.
Drywall
I’m actually an expert at drywall. In my previous home, I did most of the drywall for the bedroom and bathroom addition. But drywall dust does a number on my sinuses. I stubbornly refuse to wear a mask. It’s not the hanging of the drywall so much as it is the sanding, because the drywall paste dust never confines itself to the area being sanded. Clear across the house you find drywall paste dust mixing in with the normal dust that you never get around to wiping off. And drywalling requires multiple steps, including cutting it to size, screwing it in, plastering it, sanding it and then priming it.
And I’m not patient.
Laying Flooring
Whether it’s tile or wood or laminate, it’s all way too time consuming. And these projects make areas completely unusable for a long time. Tiling and grouting is a chore only the most desperate could love doing. Honestly, the biggest problem for me is not the time it takes, but the measuring and lining up of the elements. Precision is not my special sauce. Eyeballing stuff—that’s a unique skill of mine.
Everything is crooked in the homes I’ve remodeled.
Framing
I helped my family frame a new porch on one of the homes I remodeled. Everything had to be straight and level. And measured twice.
Framing also requires you to hold heavy pieces of wood up above your head. You have to contort your body to nail in the two by fours, which makes me dizzy.
And that’s why I fell off the unfinished porch onto the ground below and hit my head hard on the gravel.
Finish Carpentry
Only the most intrepid home remodelers, or the stingiest, would attempt to make cove molding. I did this revolting, tiresome chore in my last home. Fortunately, my brother-in-law, who has a fully stocked woodworking shop, lived next door so I could use his chop saw to cut the angles. Still, I had to make hundreds of trips back and forth to get the angles just right.
The angles were never correct. I used caulk, plenty of it, to fill in the gaps. And then painted over it, hoping that no one would notice.
Wallpapering
I recently wallpapered one wall in my guest bedroom. Peel and stick wallpaper is much easier and way less messy than paste wallpaper but it’s still no picnic in the park.
It was such a stressful experience that I had to have a beer to get through it. And I don’t drink.
I still need to go back in there to smooth out the bubbles of air below the paper but I can’t face it just yet.
Electrical
Once I tried to repair a faulty wall switch in my kitchen. I watched a very good YouTube video on the problem.
I got an electrical shock. And the repair didn’t work. The electrician I hired fixed the problem in a few minutes.
Is it Better to Hire Skilled Professionals?
There's no easy answer to that for me. On the one hand, I'd love to have the project done well by people who know what they're doing. On the other hand, any disruption to my routine and to my surroundings is truly agonizing. I like order and predictability. Those two things go out the door when you hire professionals.
Right now, I'm in the middle of having my interior painted. I’ve despised the color of the walls here for almost four years but put off painting because I couldn’t stand the thought of strangers in my home and the disruption to my busy boring life and being surrounded by chaos, like this:
For People Who Love DIY Remodeling
I follow a lot of DIY home remodelers on Instagram and I have tremendous respect and admiration for their confidence and grit. And their patience.
It's inspiring to see the transformation from hovel to a sparkling, cherished home. Of course, I can't hear the cursing done in the background, covered up by soothing instrumentals.
Main photo: Photo by Ivan S, Unsplash