Hi there, Mr. and Mrs. 1500 tag-teaming to ask today’s question, Are you a do-it-yourselfer? (The oldest little 1500 is reading this over my shoulder and just announced “yourselfer” isn’t a real word!)
So last week, I had a total brain fart, and didn’t even think about a question or posting until about 6:00 in the evening. So TWO weeks ago, I asked about Christmas presents, and how you handle them.
I received some really great responses. The very first one, from @mustachianpost, had some really great advice. He said “Budgeting helped a lot in removing emotions in Christmas expenses.” This is something I struggle with, because the people on my list need nothing, and in some cases actually don’t have any room for anything else. Removing emotions would help me handle the gift-giving to a particular family member.
Aunt Beulah wrote that she and her husband give their grandchildren “experiences” rather than adding one more gift to the pile. I love this idea, and my parents have actually done this for several years now. It works really well. You don’t really remember the “stuff” but you remember the time spent.
Dolver from The New York Budget also gives experiences rather than gifts. He tells of family dinners and beer tastings. (Mr. 1500 would happily accept an invitation to those beer tastings!) He also adds that a way to get rid of excess books is to add them on to another gift after you have read them. Great idea. I love re-gifting!
Mrs. PoP from Planting our Pennies bakes traditional family cookies as gifts. I LOVE this idea, and she should probably send me some so I can taste-test before she gives them to others.
Done by Forty‘s response made me laugh out loud! One year, they requested – with plenty of advance notice – no gifts. They also said they would be donating to charity instead of giving gifts to family. When the day came, they received a mountain of gifts, and their recipients were very upset about their “gifts”, which were notes that described the donation made on their behalf. Later in the year, Done by Forty found out that the recipients on his list thought Done by Forty had received tax deductions. ?!? “Anyway, that was the last time we tried breaking with tradition. Now, we give them what they ask for: gift cards. Merry flipping Christmas.” My sentiments exactly.
So what did I do this year? Since we are traveling, we just bought gift cards for everyone. Some people prefer this, and it makes it easy to pack. We have a full car, so every little bit of space is needed. Sigh.
Now on to this week’s question; Do you do home improvement projects yourselves? If so, which ones?
Home improvements have been consuming a bit of my time lately. This past weekend, I insulated a couple walls, installed drywall and then mudded them (mudding is finishing the drywall seams with tape and drywall compound).
Last week, we had a severe cold spell which threw our lives into chaos. Our washer and dryer were in an unconditioned space due to our ongoing home improvements. The pipes froze up. Arrrgh. Our temporary solution was to move the washing machine into the kitchen which meant that we had to move the pipes.
Let’s back up and take a trip down memory lane. A decade ago, I didn’t know how to do any home improvements. Then one weekend, someone showed me how to set tile. The work was incredibly gratifying, but most of all, we saved a lot of money. With almost any home improvement project, the labor costs far more than the materials*.
Since then, I’ve acquired many new skills. My skills include:
- hanging and finishing drywall
- electrical
- plumbing
- setting tile including fancy stuff like granite and travertine
- minor framing
- installing doors and windows
- installing hardwood floors, both nail down and floating
I’m pretty sure I’ve save well over $100,000 with these skills. The truth is that none of it is hard either. Just read some books, watch some videos and take your time. You won’t do it as fast as a pro, but if you’re careful, the results will look just as good.
Anyway, I’ve rambled long enough. My projects are a post for another day. However, I do want to know about projects. Tell me:
- what you’ve done
- how you learned your skills
- how the jobs turned out
*This is especially true with plumbing. A couple years back, we were selling a home and had to use the buyer’s plumber to rectify some inspection issues. Eight hours of work cost us $50 in PVC parts and over $900 (!!!) in labor. That day, I promised myself to do all plumbing work myself.
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Living in NY and being a perpetual renter has weakened my DIY muscle. I try to do small repairs to my apartment (fix leaks, etc), but I am definitely missing out on the opportunity to develop the skills that homeowners have the opportunity to build.
Mr. NYBudget recently posted…Don’t Take Cabs. You’re Better Than That!
Some days, especially lately, I wish that I was a renter! Homes give you good swift kicks in the nether regions every once in a while. Too many for me lately…
We just bought a small fixer upper and we’re going to be learning a lot of these skills! It’s both exciting and scary how much we have to do. Just trying to remember the end goal of what it will look like. So many projects!
SavvyFinancialLatina recently posted…Leaning In At the Start of Your Career
It is scary! I still get nervous doing a lot of projects, but you just be careful and take your time. I’ve never had a disaster.
No. No. No. LOL.
I’m a self-decorator, but certainly not a handy(wo)man. If anything needs to be repaired, we call our landlord or my dad!
Michelle @fitisthenewpoor recently posted…Cheap Wrapping Paper Alternatives
Yes. Yes! YES!! You can learn!
If not though, dads are a great resource…
I’ve done a ton of DIY stuff on the 4 houses we’ve owned, from kitchens/baths/walls/floors/electrical/plumbing… you name it, there’s probably been some element that I’ve done. My dad was always a DIY kind of guy, so that’s where I get it from.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been painting our kitchen cabinets. With only the doors left to do, it’s looking great, and best of all my wife is REALLY happy with it. I’m trying to learn how to professionally spray the doors to give them a smooth, tough coat, so that will be another “first”.
Your bathroom looks awesome! I’ve got a before and after pic of a (small) bathroom I renovated in our last house here if you’re interested. Good luck on the rest of your renovations!
FI Pilgrim recently posted…Would You Become Self Employed For Less Money?
Check out pinterest for links to sites that tell you how to refinish or paint your existing cabinets. And Kudos to you for learning this skill. If you want to come perfect it, I have a kitchen full of hideous cabinets…
Your bathroom looks great! My wife and I have a room in the basement that we’ve been meaning to finish off since we moved to our new home last year. This will be used as our storage room. The problem was it had some holes from some shoddy shelving the previous owner had installed. So we needed to spackle the holes, paint and install new shelves for additional storage.
This was our first time spackling so we wanted to learn how to use the hawk and trowel. We found some great instructional videos on YouTube. That part took 2 days as you have to let the spackle dry overnight and then sand it. Next, we proceeded to paint the room, which took another 2 days. Finally we installed a ClosetMaid system we bought at Home Depot.
We have installed about 5 of these systems throughout our house and they are great. The total cost was $200. Most of that was for the cost of the ClosetMaid system which is a bit expensive but the system will allow us to create 2 separate storage sections in the basement. We love organization so this is something that is completely worth the time and money.
Richie @ Practical Cents recently posted…Pride of Home Ownership
Thanks Richie for the compliment!
Nice work on the basement room! YouTube seems to be the best resource on earth for just about anything on earth.
Over the last year we bought our current home, a foreclosure, purchased with a 203K Loan(a professional does the job and the loan is all added into one), I still have done some DIY projects, painting, landscape, etc. Over time I have realized this is not the best plan for me. Here’s a really good example.
The door on the front of the house was old and the paint had worn off, rather than buy a new door and pay $1000, we realized they don’t make doors like they used to and decided to sand and stain the current door……….About 3 weeks later after hand sanding, buying an electric sander, staining the door multiple times, taking out the plexi-glass and nails trying to put back in the door, only to have the door not really fit back in due not knowing how to shimmy the door back in(our contractor’s guy’s did it for us). I would probably say the DIY is not entirely for me. I’d rather manage the contractor on getting the job done.
We have had success with family and hiring hourly workers to help out with little side jobs, our contractor also takes one off jobs for cheap almost as favors for being a customer. If you are able to do the DIY and more than anything enjoy it, God Bless. As for me, I know my limitations, strengths, and weaknesses, like going to youtube to figure out how to start the pilot light.
Steven recently posted…What Do You Want to Hear? Dumb Decisions
I say it all the time, YouTube is the best resource on earth. Fire up the video on your phone or tablet and have it next to you while you work away.
I can send you recipes! Not sure how they’d mail since they’re best either freshly baked or frozen… =).
As for DIY, we are right there with you. The list of projects we gladly hire out (large tree removal) is way shorter than the list of projects we’ve tackled ourselves (siding, roofing, interior electrical, plumbing, tile work, and aesthetic work). Though if we’re ever gazillionaires (check with daughter #1 to see if that’s a real word), plumbing will be the next thing we hire out. Mr PoP spent the better part of Sunday saying “I hate plumbing, but I love my wife and she wants this sink…” Over and over.
Mrs PoP @ Planting Our Pennies recently posted…Pimp The PoP’s Garage – Part 4 – Get Rich By Enduring Chaos
Daughter #1 says Gazillionaire is a word! I will take recipes for sure.
We had a very large tree removed, and paid for it. It was a silver maple, which is really nothing more than a large weed. Very soft wood. It had an enormous branch hanging over the neighbor’s house, which turned out to be dead, full of water, and just waiting to fall and break their roof wide open. That set us back $2,500, but we would never have been able to remove it ourselves. I am impressed with the roofing you have done. That is on the list of things we have never tried…
I thought I was a DIY person.. meh, not so much. I can do it – and we do tackle DIY home improvement projects – but I really don’t enjoy it like I thought we would. We’ve done all the painting in our house, built frames for builder-grade, unfinished mirrors, ripped up the carpet on our stairs and replaced it with wood (and did the painting there, too), fixed up all the hardware/knobs on the doors, and built our coffee table.. and I am absolutely dreading starting up again with the next few things on our list, which include building a hutch, redoing the downstairs flooring, and painting the kitchen. We can do it, and will, but for some reason the “do it” part just isn’t fun to me. I need to figure out how to fix THAT next!
Kali @ CommonSenseMillennial recently posted…Busted Budget? Try a No Spend Week
Some of it sucks, but even if you don’t enjoy it, think about all of the money you’ll save.
Maybe something artistic would be more your style? I like tile because it looks really nice when done as opposed to boring drywall.
I generally do try to be DIY but my skills are not where I want them to be yet. I recently changed out a garbage disposal and disassembled/repaired a leaking faucet. But when our water heater went out, I ended up calling in our plumber (even though I probably could’ve used that as an opportunity to learn how to solder pipes or use PEX).
I think in 2014 I’ll make that a goal of mine. There are some tasks that I want to take on longer term (e.g. – building kitchen cabinets and installing them), and think the catch for me is to view them as an opportunity to build my skills rather than save money.
Done by Forty recently posted…One Case of Homelessness
Building cabinets, now that is an intense goal! Very cool though.
I think that changing the disposal and repairing the faucet is easier than the water heater. Soldering is actually pretty easy. Hit up YouTube and you’ll be a pro in 15 minutes.
Or come visit us. We have plenty of jobs you can learn…
Careful…I might just take you up on that. 🙂
Done by Forty recently posted…One Case of Homelessness
Nice work with the tile surround tub!
I’ve saved a lot, I’m not sure it’s in the $100k range.
Love me some DIY work!
Elroy recently posted…Saving Out
Thanks!
I don’t own my own place so we don’t have renovations or anything that we can really change. I do take pride in doing things myself and creating/decorating/repairing/etc. so when the day comes, I hope to be a DIYer!
This Life On Purpose recently posted…Unlocking the Value of Your Gift Cards
Yes, nice attitude! It is very, very gratifying completing a cool project. I also like being able to do things how I want. For example, I can do a funky tile pattern or put space invaders in my shower: http://goo.gl/az40NT
I do painting, and have delved into very basic plumbing and electrical. Have tried working with drywall, and it was a disaster. I would like to learn to do much, much more. I feel kind of silly having an architecture degree and knowing how to tell other people what to do, but being unable to do it myself. I used to watch shows like This Old House and Hometime religiously from a very young age. I love watching other people do things the proper way…but I’m too scared that I will mess up my own house. My husband didn’t learn how to do home improvement projects, but my dad (who built my childhood house himself) has taken him under his wing and he’s learning quickly. With a big old house built in 1918, learning to DIY could save us a lot of money!
Ha, drywall can get messy! I suggest that you don’t give up though. Watch some YouTube videos and give it another try. Finishing drywall well is a bit of an art form too. It is one of the more difficult things to do.
We were not exactly handy until we bought our house two years ago. We hated the kitchen/bathroom cabinet colors. Instead of getting new ones, we painted them and added new hardware. The painting took a while but saved us $$$ for sure. We also changed out all the light fixtures for the entire house (had builder lights). We are now in the process of putting up a backsplash for the kitchen. We started the project after a shopping trip to Costco (found some nice big tiles for cheap). We are learning slowly and it has been fun. The latest DIY project has been fixing the OTR microwave. The fan button broke and the repair would have cost us $200 for a service call plus parts. Mr Y found the repair manual and ordered the parts for under $20 (shipping was expensive, the actual part was $4). After half an hour of labor, it was fixed. Google is always our best friend.
What on earth did we do before Google? I have no idea!
Good for you with the cabinet project. You saved a lot of money and time. You also didn’t send perfectly good materials to the local dump.
Costco has some great stuff! We just scored some really neat backsplash tile from there.
Nice work. Definitely a DIYer here. My goal is to someday finish an entire basement, including bathroom, on a DIY basis!
Collin @ Window in the Ivory Tower recently posted…Anatomy of a Scientific Research Paper (Part 1)
Collin, that is an awesome goal!
I took a look at your site and you have done some cool work! I’m a programmer myself and your job in academia looks very cool.
One of my goals is to automate my home. I’d love to be able to open my garage door and controls the rest of the stuff in my home via my phone and my own software. Someday…
I don’t own a home so I really can’t talk about diy jobs I’ve done there. Landlords tend to frown when you try to start fixing things and ripping them apart by yourself. That said, I picture trying to do as much as I can on my own when I do get a house. I’ve done the same thing with my car and really like how much I’ve saved because of it. I remember once being quoted $600 to fix the serpentine belt on my Corolla. The belt cost $15 bucks and it took me 30 minutes to slap it on. I didn’t have to take anything apart in the car. I simply used the tension pulley to loosen the old belt and put the new one on. That was somehow going to cost me $600.
Micro recently posted…Neuticles – Why do these things even exist
Good for you! I work on cars too, but admit that I can barely stand it! If you can change a serpentine belt, working on a home isn’t going to be in issue for you.
Great article, guys. Like you, Mr. 1500, Rick didn’t have a clue about DIY house and car stuff, but now knows SO much. He’s taught himself how to install tile, laminate flooring, he did a complete remodel of our bathroom once, and he’s learned a ton of DIY car repair stuff, all by doing some google searches and watching some YouTube videos. Like you guys, I know we’ve saved a ton of cash this way, so now DIY is always our first choice before we call the repair guys.
Laurie @thefrugalfarmer recently posted…How to Get out of Debt: Beware of the Self-Justified Pity Party
This is why I love being a renter currently. I own a property that is being rented out, and I can do baby fixes. Given enough time I could probably do more major things, but I hate the continual list of things that never seems to get done. Thankfully, the outside stuff was taken care of (condo townhome) but anything in the walls was my responsibility.
My father, on the other hand, has all this stuff down pat. He grew up on a farm, and as a result knows how to make things work, even if they shouldn’t. It’s something I am sorely missing for home ownership. I think it’s partly a generational thing as well, in my case.
Alicia @ Financial Diffraction recently posted…Christmas on a Budget.
I am unable to do almost anything in my house and IT KILLS ME (and my wallet). It is so f’n frustrating. I openly blame my dad for not teaching me anything. To make it worse my brother in law who lives 3 states away literally renovates high end homes! I think he is going to help me re-do my basement so I should get some experience that way.
Evan recently posted…Mastering the Markets: Why Education is King
I once bought a home that needed a LOT of work. That was almost ten years ago and I’m so thankful that I did that looking back. I learned how to frame a wall, add an electrical circuit, plumb a shower (sweating copper pipes mind you), and countless other small home repairs. I definitely recommend taking the plunge into DIY home rennovation. Not only can you save a lot of money, but you’re growing those brain cells by learning new things!
Yeah, these skills pay off over and over and over again. I’ve done at least 20 tile jobs since my first one, saving loads of money.
I didn’t really think I was a DIY, but when I think about it, I guess I am. I’ve installed gutters, rain catchments, replaced all our kitchen cabinets top and bottom, sink, installed a dishwasher, washer, dryer, flooring, and last summer I built a 1200sqft garage/shop and am now learning about boiler installation and am ready to take that on. I recently discovered the FI blogosphere, and see the great benefits of DIY, especially in home maintenance matters. The boiler install in the garage will then allow me to tackle our home heating in a year or two, saving 1000’s. Thanks for your write ups, I enjoy reading and learning. The wife and I hope to be FI at 40, and we’re on track as long as the market indexes stay on track:)
“The wife and I hope to be FI at 40, and we’re on track as long as the market indexes stay on track:)”
Nice. Go! Go!! Go!!!
Wow, you are totally DIY and your jobs are inspiring! You just save sooooooooooo much money.
And a boiler install, wow!
I do all my trades work unless it involves opening a roof to the elements. Gas piping, hydronic underfloor heat, sheet metal ductwork, etc. Rule of thumb for estimating I use is…2X material cost = labor. Sometimes the multiplier is higher. Quality of work is higher than if I contracted out, but the job typically takes longer.
At home I do so many of my own trades but when I get work from elsewhere I always get professionals to carry out the work. You have done a great job though especially in the bathroom and I think you should do this professionally
inspection and testing recently posted…Boiler Energy Efficiency