The Learning Process and Determining the Level of Effort
DIYing doesn’t come natural to everyone. I’ve always loved and wanted to do the work on my own, but never really learned how or where to learn. I watched my father who is a hard-working man, jimmy his way into DIY, which I now look back and wonder why he did some of the things he did, and then others I am surprised have stood the test of time and lasted forever. My first ever project was a simple tile job in a bathroom of me and my first husband’s home. I wanted the tile to travel up the wall (no judgment, it was a trend back then), and cover the small 50 square foot floor. It wasn’t going to be hard. All I needed was some mortar, tile, and maybe some spacers and a float to get it done. I slapped it all together, I “thought” it looked great, but then my dad came over and pointed out some of the flaws within the application, including uneven tiles, extra mortar in some areas and some rough edges on the wall that as a newbie I hadn’t even noticed. I always had the desire to learn but was never taught some of the basics. Knowing what I know now that application would have likely had to be changed in just a couple of years or sooner due to the lackluster job. Why? Because uneven tile could create trip hazards, and potential for the tiles to break, and extra mortar or less under those tiles could lead to loosened and unsightly tiles, and the rough edges on the wall would have likely scratched one of my kids so bad I would have cursed myself, torn down all the tiles so that I could start all over.
Fast forward to my first project with my second, best, most handsome, and forever husband and I recall we wanted to tackle our first large renovation by redoing the kitchen on our first home together. It was a huge accomplishment for both of us since we had saved loads of money to get there, including saving for our wedding (thousands), reversing my tubal ligation (thousands), and of course the down payment for our first home together (even more thousands). The kitchen was very large with a lot of unused space. We really wanted to add an island, upgrade the cabinets from the builder-grade type that came with the home and add in some splashes of color using backsplash, paint and new appliances. We figured we could tackle the project with no problem in only a month even though I was 6 months pregnant, we both worked full-timeand still were very obligated to care for my older children who at the time were 14, 16 and 18.
In my mind, that was more than enoughtime to complete the job. We learned, although slowly that the time and level of effort we needed to conquer the project was a lot more than we had anticipated. We also realized much later that some of the decisions we deemed were so important ultimatelywere not necessary and not a value-add at all.
Since we both had full-time jobs, lots of activities for our older kids and limited experience doing the work most of the time we spent for things like preparing the space for the changes, researching what needed to happen with each portion of the project (hello, YouTube researching blogs of others who had done it), buying the materials and buying more if we forgot something or skipped a step, and doing certain things over again because it didn’t apply correctly or we simply messed it up.
When we started the project, one thing I noticed first was demowas very massive. All the cabinets we were removing would have needed a huge trash bin to discard them all, in addition to the sink, the hardware, the countertops and lighting we were changing out. The trash bins, we learned, were also not cheap. We rented one for about $500 for just a couple of weeks, and if we needed it longer, adding an additional week set us back another$100. Mind you, that was 10 years ago, and everything is twice as expensive now. We got around some of this by loading the truck up with cabinets and anything else of use to be donated at a nearby home recycling center instead. This was a much better option than just filling a landfill with perfectly usable construction material and they could find a new home for someone else to enjoy, at a fraction of the cost. The only downside to this is you need a truck to load it all and may need to do multiple trips if it’s a lot. Also, when you do take things to a dump site, they charge you. It’s not free.
We were also adding an island that wasn’t there before. This meant we had to not only cut into the concrete to tap into the electrical wiring located on the wall behind the fridge, but also decide if we were going to remove the hardwood floor beneath the island. You see, if we removed the flooring, we would have needed to cut it away and possibly risk damaging a piece. If we damaged a piece and couldn’t find the same flooring style to purchase to replace it that job would look shoddy. We could have done it with the hope that we could salvage a piece we had already removed but ultimately, we went with keeping the floor in place and placing the cabinets on top of the flooring. We did, however have drill into part of the cement foundation to run the electrical but that’s a story for another day.
We encountered other logistics we hadn’t considered before, like, the refrigerator would stick out about 8-inches further than the depth of the cabinets making it, not only an eye sore, but also a bit of a hazard. We though why would we do all this custom work to have the kitchen not look seamless. And, why hadn’t we considered this logistic before? Well, that was because we bought the refrigerator before starting the project, and the fridge just wasn’t cabinet depth. For this problem we solved the issue by building out the wall behind the fridge (and thank God we were using floor-to-ceiling cabinetry to cover it all up otherwise there would have been an inset visible behind the fridge. Doing it this way allowed us to push the cabinets further out so that the refrigerator would be flush, creating a more custom look.
The next logistic we hadn’t considered was matching the style of cabinets we purchased with the old cabinets we were removing but were going to use for the island. Now, for some, having variety and uniqueness to your humble abode is okay. For us, we wanted the home to look like a model home and appeal to any buyer when we were ready to sell it (thanks HGTV!). Now, if you remember there were decisions we made that added no value when we actually sold the home. The decision to buy cabinets with all wood boxes for higher quality and to avoid any problems with spillages and water damage seemed like the best way to go and since we weren’t sure if we were going to be in this home for the next ten years, we wanted those cabinets to last. When we made the decision to only buy cabinetry with all wood boxes (meaning the inside of the cabinet was all wood and not pressed wood material) meant we were also limiting ourselves to the style that the retailer had available to sell. We really wanted this beautiful white cabinetry to lighten up this dark home, but instead had to choose a cherry-like, dark wood cabinetry with a slight bevel because that was all they had for all wood boxes.