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| Do It Yourself or Not? |
First project was the shower in the master bedroom's bathroom. The wall had caved in over six months ago and I had a piece of drywall sitting the bathroom to repair it for approximately five and half months. I had never done drywall repair to this extent and so I kept putting it off. It seemed like a monumental job. The wall had to be repaired and re-tiled.
Second project, was a disaster in the laundry room. The washing machine drain kept backing up onto the floor. This one I decided to tackle myself. I tried Drano and I snaked out the drain. It seemed to work except when it randomly decided to back up again. I put off washing the piles of clothes that were sopping up the overflow that didn't get down the floor drain in hopes of denying the problem was still there. I convinced myself the drain was good and started to tackle all the laundry room piles. The drain didn't back up until the third load. I put, new snake on my list, but before I headed to the hardware store I made an impromptu call to a drain service company.
AJ came out about an hour after I called and found a major clog in the washing machine drain just past the cement patio; tree roots and lots of them. You can't get those out with a typical snake; you need a snake with a motor on it. This was definitely worth contracting out for the sixty dollars he charged me. By the end of the day, I had all the piles of laundry caught up, could see a dry, clean laundry room floor, and got all the rest of the laundry caught up that I'd been putting off because I was worried the washing machine drain would back up.
As for the hole in the master bedroom shower, I decided to try out my new Exacto knife and Makita drill set to cut and hang a piece of drywall. After that was in place I gathered everything I needed to hang a few tiles. How hard can that be? I remember the summer my mom tiled a whole bathroom. I counted the missing tiles and went for it. The only problem I ran into was that the last row of tiles were about an 1/8 of an inch too large for their space. I had to have a tile cutter to cut the tiles. Luckily, I come from a family of stubborn old do-it-yourself-ers which is why I have to have the do it myself or contract out debate in the first place. My sister has a wet sander, "tile cutter," and offered to swing by with it so we could finish up these last four tiles. All that was left was to add the grout and I had a new shower (well an old one that hadn't been used in six months).
Grouting has been made a lot easier with the silicone sand grout. That went on easy and looks great. What a great feeling it was to finally have my master bedroom shower back!
So how would I decide if I should do it myself or contract out? Here are few questions to consider while you make your decision.
1. Do you have the tools you need to do the job?
2. If you don't have the tools can you borrow or rent them?
3. Do you know how or can you learn quickly how to use the tools to do the job?
4. Do you have the skills or can you learn the skills quickly to do the job?
5. Do you know how to the do the job or can you get instructions from a book or the Internet?
6. Do you know anyone with the skills that can and will help you?
7. With your skill set and tools, how long will it take you to accomplish the job compared to how long will it take a professional to come in and do the job?
8. How much will you save doing it yourself (including the cost of acquiring the tools) compared to hiring a professional to do the job?
9. Will there be a big gap between the quality of the finished product done by yourself or the professional hired to do the job?
10. Will the skills you learn, tools you purchase, and experience you gain be an investment in your ability to complete future do it yourself projects?
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