It's not unrealistic to think a total kitchen or bathroom overhaul can be done in record time if you have a good enough case of FOMO from a renovation social media account. DIY has been extremely popular with the rising costs of labor, the availability of how-to TikToks, and the accessibility of tools. Homeowners are avoiding the yellow pages in favor of home improvement tools and taking on the renovations themselves.
Even with the popularity of DIY, there is a major learning curve from watching a home improvement show to doing a DIY home renovation. We consulted four experts from various fields, including design, real estate, and retail, to understand where the biggest learning curve exists and how to avoid that in the future.
Learn Which Projects Can Be DIY'ed
It makes sense that not all renovations take the same amount of skill to accomplish, but for some reason, homeowners think that they do, and that is one of the biggest mistakes homeowners make. Most cosmetic renovations can be done by the average person, but that confidence should not extend to structural builds or changes.
"The mistake I see constantly is homeowners extending that same confidence into structural, electrical, or plumbing work because a video made it look simple," says Kur Win Lau, founder at MyRenoService. "It rarely accounts for what's actually behind the wall."
In her professional opinion, those should be the l; limits of the DIY project or when structural integrity and building codes are at stake.
Get The Order of Operations Right
You may feel inclined to rush and start working on the visible segment first. However, completing the visible layer, even if there is still an underlying problem, is perhaps the worst and costliest sequencing mistake you can make.
"People finish the visible layer before solving the problem underneath it, then have to tear their own finished work back out," concludes Lau.
Try to finish whatever is underneath before finishing the layer above because once the layer is complete, the underlying segment cannot be worked on and you will lose precious time.
Think About Resale Price, Not The Aesthetic
You may feel like you have improved your house, but the actions you have taken may not be perceived positively by an outsider. For example, rather than trying to guess by yourself the quality of your improvements, you can look at them fairly by thinking about how a buyer, appraiser, and inspector would view them.
According to Sain Rhodes, a real estate expert at Clever Offers, “Buyers respond well to updated kitchens and bathrooms, so a homeowner who does competent DIY work before selling can genuinely add value." However, uneven tiling, mismatched trimming or even work on an addition that isn't permitted would be an enormous waste of time and would be detrimental to the value of your home. Rhodes' advice is to focus on painting, fixtures or perhaps the landscaping, and give the rest of the remodeling work to a professional.
Don't let research replace judgment
The rise of the DIY culture can be attributed to people feeling more confident in starting projects without prior experience. Online tutorials and guides, combined with reviews and AI product recommendations, all make people feel more prepared and ready to start projects, without the need to go to the hardware store.
"That's a real shift from a decade ago," says Rafael Sarim Oezdemir, Head of Growth at EZContacts. "The risk is that confidence built from watching content doesn't always transfer to execution."
The best retailers build shopping and checkout predictability, so that customers are guided to the right materials for their projects, instead of the highest margin product.
Self-confidence and the willingness to learn are great, but they should never come at the expense of knowing when to ask for help.
Know when to ask for help – even online
Self-confidence is great, but it shouldn't come at the expense of trusting the right sources. Renovation is a great example of where some questions can be answered with a great deal of research, however, others are too project- and situation-specific to answer without the help of a real person.
"AI-assisted customer service has gotten good at answering the repetitive, factual questions — sizing, compatibility, return policies instantly, which is exactly the kind of question a DIY shopper has at 9 pm before a weekend project," says Peter Moon, CEO of Herba Health Inc. "Where it still needs a human is anything ambiguous or project-specific, where a wrong recommendation could mean a wasted purchase or a failed project."
His advice for shoppers: Project-specific questions should be answered by real people, so don't settle for the first answer when your question exists to order to achieve an answer.
The bottom line
DIY renovation isn’t going anywhere and can save money and provide some sense of ownership of certain projects. The key is knowing what tasks can make your confidence level increase, and what tasks are confidence punishing.
