Why DIY?

Most people don’t understand why we’re so obsessed with DIY. Most people ask why (or just give us that look that says “You’re crazy”) when we start talking about the things we want to do. There are also many people that don’t understand why we don’t just take a big ole loan out, hand the cash over to a contractor, and get the home of our dreams a few months later without lifting a finger. For a lot of people, home improvement is a necessity or a chore and not something fun. I suppose if I really think about it, I probably felt the same way about 5 years ago.
 

 

Our First House

 

When we bought our first house we were young. We were still “growing up” ( I feel like we still kind of are), and with that means we were on a tight budget. We moved into a 2380 square foot foreclosure out of the equivalent of 2 bedroom apartment filled with hand me down furniture. For example, my couches were “reclaimed” from the sidewalk of my mom’s neighbor’s house. So picture us in a large house in need of updating, a small amount of crappy furniture, and about zero dollars after closing on the house. Taking out debt was completely out of the question for us. We wanted to live within our means. $2500 in labor to paint the house was definitely NOT within our means at the time. So yeah. Insert DIY.

 

The very first day while Justin and his friend moved us in, I started painting. I didn’t paint because I wanted it pretty, but rather because the house was in desperate need of paint.

 

 

Our first house's kitchen. Fruit themed wallpaper border and dirty white walls = yuck.

 

 

The upstairs hallway in our first house. Notice how dirty the walls are.

 

The painting job that I did was pretty terrible. We weren’t happy with it, but it was still definitely an improvement over what was there before. Over the years, I continued to research and try out all sorts of things, from wall painting techniques to painting cabinetry in our bathroom. I even painted our vinyl floor in the bathroom! Do you sense a theme? I was too scared to venture off into doing anything besides painting. Don’t get me wrong…I learned SO much from that time period and it was all through trial and error. I learned how to spackle and retexture walls, how to caulk, what kind of primer to use and when, various sanding instruments and techniques, which paintbrush to use and when, how to cut in a perfect line, why it’s important to use quality paint, etc. We lived and learned and got so much better as time went on. Not only that, but I developed my love of DIY and all of the challenges that come with it.

 

Eventually we became a little more confident. We built a train table for our son’s second birthday that wasn’t perfect, but it was a heck of a lot better looking and better quality than anything we could have gotten for the price we paid ($97 in lumber). Surprisingly, it was pretty easy, and it turned out awesome (if I do say so myself).
 

 

 

 

After we built the table, I realized that most of the pieces I had been pining over in the Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel catalogs could be made on the cheap. We could do it, except for the little tiny issue of not having all of the right tools. And then it hit me. I could spend $1000 on a dining room table at Pottery Barn, or I could make one for $100 in lumber, $300 for a miter saw, and $200 for a nailer and compressor, all of which we could keep for other projects. We’d still save $400.  That got me really, really excited. I love saving money. I also love seeing a finished product that WE made ourselves, exactly how we wanted it and without any help from others.  

 

We sold our first house in August 2013 simply because we wanted more space and a pool for the kids. We sold our house for a lot less than what we could have had we gotten over our fears sooner and made a bigger impact. Like our first house, our new house has a ton of potential. It’s in a great neighborhood, has a great floor plan, but hasn’t been updated at all since it was built in 1997. We are not going to make the same mistake this time around. I look back at everything that we learned in the past 4 years and I realized that if we had been too scared to even pick up a paint brush, we wouldn’t have learned anything. We are going to experiment this time around, take some chances, and make our house a home.