Pros and Cons of Doing Your Own Renovations

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The longer we spend cooped up in the house, the more we get stir-crazy and want to change things up.

Maybe there was something about the house you hated from the beginning and have just been waiting to build up the energy to do something about it. But now comes the question: should you take the risk and do it yourself or dish out the money and hire help?

There are benefits and disadvantages to both options.

To help you decide, here are some pros and cons of DIY house projects.

Con: Lacking Experience

The biggest con to doing your own projects is your lack of experience in construction and limited time to spend on the project. You’re likely juggling a full-time job and working on the DIY project on the side, so you’re not able to spend as much brain space on planning it.

Each step will take longer since you don’t know quite what you’re doing. Unless you’re already a contractor, chances are that you’ve never handled big home renovation projects before.

However, a great way to mitigate this con is by getting your own license. Requirements will depend on which state you live in. For example, getting an Arizona contractors license will be different than in Texas. However, the end result is the same: you will learn how to complete all the projects you want to do on your home safely and correctly.

You’ll also have a better idea of your limitations and what you can tackle on your own. As a bonus: once you’re official, you can use this as a side business hustle!

Con: Time Constraints

If you’re planning on tackling a big project like remodeling a kitchen or a bathroom, time is of the essence (especially if it’s your only bathroom or kitchen). Hiring a contractor will ensure that you’ll get the job done in a shorter amount of time vs. chipping away at it over weeks and months if you were doing it yourself.

Pro: You Control the Quality of the Job (and materials)

We have all hired a “professional” to do a job, only to find that it was completed subpar and needs to be redone.

When you do a project yourself, you get to:

  • Pick the quality of the materials you use
  • Choose how long (or short) you spend making something look perfect
  • Avoid being locked into a contractor’s prices or their available materials

Pro: Saving Money on Labor

When you hire outside help, the actual price of materials isn’t the costliest bit: it’s usually the price of the labor it takes to finish the project.

This makes sense: these people have spent many hours learning their trade, and this is their full-time job. But if you do the work yourself, you’re only paying for the cost of the materials.

This means that you can splurge a little more on quality materials since you’re not shelling out funds for labor.

Pro: Express Your Creativity

Often, contracting companies have set, cookie-cutter molds for the renovations they do, which sticks your creativity in a box and leaves it there. There are companies that will custom-do projects for you, but those will be more expensive.

Completing a project yourself means you can really explore your vision for your remodel and make it a reality without being confined by commercial company molds.

Takeaways

There are plenty of pros and cons to doing a project yourself vs. outsourcing help, but it all basically boil down to this: hiring outside help will ultimately cut down on time, planning, and stress, but this convenience comes at a much higher cost.

Julie Higgins
Author
Julie is a Staff Writer at momooze.com. She has been working in publishing houses before joining the editorial team at momooze. Julie's love and passion are topics around beauty, lifestyle, hair and nails.

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