DIY Home Projects Tips & Tricks | REIal Talk | EP. 69

Hi, guys. Welcome back to another episode of Real Talk. This is episode 69. I'm Caitlyn, the marketing coordinator here, and today we are with, hopefully a familiar face, Jennifer Ditmer. She is in the Bulldog Renovations Company here. Before we get started, is there anything you want to say at all?

Nope, not yet. Glad to be here. Yep.

So today we are going to be talking about DIY home renovations or tips and tricks that you can do and what you can expect from those kind of things. So the first thing that I want to talk about, or to talk about in general, is expect things to go wrong. Yes.

So your timing is perfect on this because we just walked a house today to buy. To look at if we wanted to buy, and the owner was. Yep. Telling us all about what his plans were. It was kind of half rehabbed. You know, some things had been done, but then a lot of stuff hadn't been. And he had big plans for how he was going to move. Move this on the porch and put the laundry area here and do this and do that. And, you know, stuff happens. Sometimes you run out of money, sometimes you run out of time to do it, or, you know, your. Your help quits or you can't find good help or whatever. But, you know, he's like, well, if you had come here last week, the floors and the. This would have been done. And, you know, I just wanted to say stop, because if we're going to buy this, we'll buy it as is and we'll do our own rehab and we want to put our own floors and our own paint and our own. That stuff there. So.

Yeah.

But I don't know what the circumstance was as to why he had to bail on his DIY rehab. But, you know, we get a lot of houses that way.

So that was my question, was it sounds like he was doing the renovation himself.

Yeah. Or had like a crew or his buddies, who knows? There's a lot of different. There's a lot of different things. And we've had a couple of instances where we, you know, we look to buy a house and, you know, it's possible that the price that we offer is not what they. As much as they think it should be worth, you know, and so we're told, well, he's just gonna keep it and get his buddies to help him rehab it. So.

Yeah.

Okay, well, we'll see in a couple of months then, you know, if that, if that doesn't work out. I mean, I hate to be cynical about it, but something happens.

Exactly. And you Know, talking about expecting things to go wrong, when you go to sell that house, there's going to be an inspection on it. And oftentimes, especially with DIY and especially if you're a beginner, there's going to be things that come up from that, those DIY renovations that are going to have to be fixed, maybe even by an expert. Like if you are, I don't know, maybe doing electrical or plumbing, you know, they're going to look at that stuff and you may think that you have it all squared away, how it should be, but sometimes, you know, you can expect that something could potentially come up in that inspection that could go wrong.

Right, right. And I would say that's. So I know we're going to talk about tips and stuff. That is one that sticks out in my mind is to, to know your limits in your own, like, personal, what you can do. Painting, you know, not hard. It's a pain in the tush to have to do all that prep work and tape everything off and, you know, cut everything out. Some people can do some minor electrical stuff. I know there's a lot of, you know, YouTube tutorials and, you know, some of the big box stores like Home Depot and Lowe's offer, you know, offer, offer classes or clinics or whatever. But know your limits, like in two ways. Know what you can do and what you're comfortable doing and what you can possibly learn to do. And then to what you just said, know what you might have to have a permit or an inspection for. And sometimes electrical, plumbing, H Vac. In certain cities or certain municipalities, yes, they would require a permit. And if you're not a registered electrician or a registered plumber or a registered, you know, technician, you cannot apply for that permit. You cannot ask for that inspection. So either now or down the line, you will have to find somebody to come in and look at that and make those changes and bring it up to code, you know, so that could be expense later on.

Yeah. Another thing too, while we're kind of on that subject, is with, you know, getting the permits and everything is double check with the city. We've talked about this in a previous podcast and vlog episode. But with historic homes, even if it's not in a historic district or the home isn't historic home, what have you still double check because there is still a chance that a city council member or someone could call and report, I don't know. And it could come back and you could get fined for not taking the proper steps.

Right. So.

And that could be something that goes wrong. That could be a setback. That could be additional money in the budget that you maybe weren't anticipating. So, you know, cross your T's, dot your I's with. Especially when it comes to those higher budget things like that, Correct?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

We just kind of talked about budgeting a little bit there. So doing your research and knowing what your budget is going to be, I know a lot of times from experience I will want to just start a project and I won't do a lot of research. Usually it's more crafty things versus an actual renovation. But still, I'm just like, oh, this sounds like a great idea. It's probably only gonna be $100 to make or something. And then I go start buying all the material and realizing how much stuff I actually. And it becomes more than what I was anticipating, Right?

Absolutely. I mean, even paint is expensive. Drywall and the cost of all materials in the post pandemic supply chain stuff that we've been dealing with, everything has gone up significantly. I mean, I'm talking sometimes by more than 50%. So if you did your research and even if you had this project mapped out like a year ago or six months ago, things may have changed. You need to kind of re evaluate what those costs are in terms of your materials, because you're exactly right. It's, it's. It's gotten more expensive. You don't anticipate all of the, all of the stuff that even goes along with it. It's like, okay, yeah, you know, I just have to buy paint. Well, no. Do you need to buy a paintbrush? Do you need to buy rollers? Do you need to buy a ladder to get to a certain height or spot in your house? You know, what do you need to. You need to buy the tape for the, for taping everything off. So, and another thing, like speaking of supplies, and this would be a tip I think too, is as much as you can have all of your supplies ready at the beginning of your rehab or available somewhere where you can store them. Because that has been an issue too. Supply chain stuff where people tell stories about waiting for weeks or even months for certain supplies to come in. And then how long do you want your bathroom torn up? You know, how long do you want your kitchen unusable?

Right.

You know, how long do you want even that, like, living room space? Not how you want it? You know, I mean, the holidays are a ways off, but, you know, it's stuff that people think about.

Yeah. Even doing your research on the finishes that you want. There's, like, paint. There are tons of different finishes that you can get and that, you know, goes along with, you know, countertops. There's different countertops. You know, what quality do you want? The flooring. What quality flooring do you want? So looking into that and, you know, like, kind of making your pros and cons list with those quality items as well, and making sure that they're what you want, that they're what you want, and within your budget and that they.

Have them all and that you have enough of them on. You know, it's. It's very hard to sometimes measure correctly to know, like, how much flooring you would need or even, you know, how much paint you're going to need in a room. You think, oh, I got a gallon of paint. This should be fine. Well, it depends. If that room wasn't painted for years, it's gonna. The wall's gonna suck in that paint, and you're gonna be like, oh, boy, I have. And, you know, do more stuff, so. Or buy, you know, buy more supplies.

Yeah, and that's another point with the whole, you know, doing your research is looking if you need. What kind of prep work you need to do before you're starting your project, you know, specifically with paint, you know, do you need to put kills on the walls or ceilings before you paint? If you're painting cabinets, you know, make sure you're doing the process. You can't just go in and paint over cabinets. They need to be sanded. The hardware, like, needs to be taken off or covered so you don't get paint on the hardware. So things like that.

If you're doing a floor in the bathroom, that toilet needs to be moved out of the way. And, you know, who's going to do that? Can you do that yourself? And then do you need a plumber to put it back in? I mean, it just depends because you certainly don't want that. That's a thing that you don't want to be working incorrectly.

Yeah. And, you know, that goes back to, you know, making your. Making a plan before you start. And there are things that, you know, in this conversation that I wouldn't have just thought about removing the toilet, you know, right away. I probably would have thought about that once I got into the project. I probably would have been like, how am I going to move this?

Who's going to do this?

I don't even know how to remove it.

I think it might be a good idea to, you know, to be. To just. I think the most efficient and time saving and probably cost efficient way to do it would literally be to sit down with a calendar and say, okay, you either go backward or you go forward. You know, if your end goal is to have it finished by three weeks from now, you know, okay, what. What has to be done before that? What has to be done before that? What has to be done before that? Like you said, if you're doing a floor in the bathroom, okay, you have to get that toilet out, you have to get that current flooring out. You know, you have to make sure you have your supplies to get your next flooring in. You need to cut, you know, cut around for that toilet, do that kind of stuff. So it's almost like if you can map that out on a calendar or even on some kind of like, not a flowchart, but just a list of steps that, you know, that you have to check off before you get to the next thing, I think that's good. And I'm sure people who do this more often, they already know, you know, some of that might be instinctive, but for the first time, you know, home, diy, home owner, you know, I think that would be a great job just to list it out and know what your steps are.

Yeah. And making sure that you have the time to do it and that you aren't going to have distractions. Especially, you know, if you have animals or children. You know, probably not the best idea to be having power tools just laying around, you know, making sure that all that is put away or you can put a gate up or something. And that is going to take away a lot of time because it's going to be distractions, really. Yeah.

I think you have to look at your life as a whole. It's where we are right now. It's back to school time. So that is obviously stressful and time consuming for parents. Has soccer season started? Has football season started? Has cheer season started? Do you want to be laying floor in your bathroom or do you want to be at your daughter's soccer game? You know, and that is sometimes the choice. And there are projects you can do, obviously in a weekend.

Right.

But like you said, there's. There's still distractions if you have a family, you know, because they're around, that life doesn't stop down just because you're rehabbing your bathroom. And yet another tip is I think you need to budget extra time. I think that if you think this is gonna take 48 hours, you need to budget 72 because. Or more because you just don't Know what kind of problems sometimes that you are gonna face until you actually get into it? Say you remove that floor and the subfloor is soft, it's wet. Okay, well, you're gonna have to replace that before you put the new stuff over, you know, or it doesn't. You've taken tile up and you're putting, you know, laminate down or LVP down. Well, you may have a gap in between those baseboards or you know, where your door closers are. So it's just, it's so much stuff that you sometimes don't even know until you get into it.

That's very true. And you know, I would say with every DIY that I have done, whether it's craft related or actual, like renovations, it always takes longer than I anticipated. Always. I don't think there's ever been anything where I've ended it on time or earlier than I thought. I remember there was this one thing, I was like, oh, yeah, that's gonna be super easy. It'll take me like an hour to do it. Did not. I think it ended up taking me four hours. Which still isn't that bad, right?

Still.

But I was not expecting it to be that long or tedious. And then like you're saying, you know, you don't know until you get in instances.

Right?

Yeah. And I mean, everything very well could be fine. And you're lucky, you don't have to do much with it. But you know, in that case, going back to, do you have the expertise to handle that and do you have the tools and equipment that are required?

Right.

Tools and equipment are expensive. So that's another thing I would look at is before you start something, do you have the tools or do you know someone who you can maybe borrow the tools from? If not, do you have room in.

The budget to get those tools and is it worth it? Are you ever going to use, you know, the, the kind of circular saw that you need to cut tile or whatever? And I think a lot of the, the big box stores do rent those because obviously you would never buy that for like a single project.

Right.

You know, I mean, that just isn't. I. Isn't a smart investment. But there are things to consider in that way because there are certain things that require specialized tools. And, you know, like you said, is it worth it? Is the money you're spending on materials and tools worth it? You know, above, like paying someone to do it instead.

Right. Which there is a, you know, if you have the budget, you have the time, there is Definitely a satisfaction with doing it yourself and, you know, looking at the completed project and you're like, yeah, I did that. But also, again, is it worth, you know, you doing it on your own budget, time, energy, or would it just be a better option to hire someone? You know, not saying, like, yeah, everything you do, you should hire someone because it is nice doing things on your own, but knowing your capacity and what you can do.

Right. I mean, we've talked, you know, we seem to be skewing, like toward the cons, but there are pros to doing it yourself. You know, you probably are going to save a significant amount of money if you plan accordingly.

Yes.

And, you know, and, and know what you're doing and know that it's a project that's within your scope of ability. You can kind of do it on your own timeline.

Yeah.

I mean, yes, it's aggravating to have that bathroom torn up for how long? But you can start the project when you want. You're not reliant on a contractor who says he's going to show up on Tuesday and doesn't show up, you know, until Thursday and then shows up for two days and doesn't come back for two weeks. You know, so you're in control of when things are done.

Yeah.

And yeah, I think there's a huge sense of satisfaction at the end.

Oh, absolutely.

You have gotten to kind of pick everything, do it the way that you want it to be done. You know, if you're a perfectionist, you make sure everything's lined up just right and, and done just the way you want it to.

So, yeah, you have a little more control. You have a lot more control when you're doing it yourself. And I, I know that about myself. I'm very much like, I want to be hands on. I want to know exactly what's going on. I am a perfectionist when it comes to things like that. So that would be very hard for me to hire someone and for a bathroom, for example, and having a delay with the contractor showing up and then potentially it just be unusable for a few days because I'm reliant on them and then not knowing where exactly they're at in the, in the process of things, what still needs to be done. Exactly. So that could be also kind of hard if you were to go that route.

Right.

You know, you wouldn't. Can you pick up where they left off kind of thing, or do you need to find a new contractor?

Right, right, exactly.

Yeah, that's a, that would be a Whole other headache on your own. And again, you know, doing it yourself, you can kind of do at your own pace. You have more control over it.

Right. And you can hopefully, you know, map out, find out. Okay, I'm redoing my bathroom. I know I'm going to need a plumber. You know, I'm going to do most of this myself, but I'm going to need a plumber. Well, you know, you can schedule when he or she can come in and do that work and kind of work around that. Yeah, absolutely. So.

And that's probably what I would do, honestly, because like I said, I don't even know where to begin with taking a toilet off. Maybe. Probably turning off the water would be a good first step. But after that, I have no clue. I would be clean, clueless. So I would definitely have to have someone come in because I. Even if I, like, looked it up on YouTube and watched several videos and. Or did a bunch of research, I still would not trust myself to do that.

Well, and I think they're. I think that that's a good. Maybe a good starting point for people is to do kind of a hybrid project. Yeah, you want to do some of it, but you also know that you're going to need professionals to do some of it. And then, like I said, you're in control of the timeline and who you hire. You know, you're not reliant on a contractor who has subcontractors and then, you know, they're not reliable or whatever. You've talked directly to the plumber or the electrician or whatever. So, you know, they're. You're paying them or not paying them, depending on how the job goes.

Yeah.

So that's a nice, you know, aspect of control. But yeah, I have to think that unless you are 100%, you know, you've like, built a house from scratch, you need to think about the fact that this. That most projects will be some kind of a hybrid project.

Yeah, I think that's a good approach when going into diy. Another thing, too is the ability with DIY is the ability to repurpose items.

Right.

And, you know, being able to keep some of that aesthetic that is in the home already, that's a big thing. You know, cabinets especially are, if they're still in good condition, everything. You just maybe want a different color.

Absolutely. Reuse those.

Or again, this is kind of more crafty, but like a dining room table, you love your dining room table, but you wanted a different color to match your new aesthetic of what you have going on in your home at that current point in time, definitely. Again, there's some prep work that needs to be done into it, so the DIY that you're doing on it will last and be durable. You know, like cleaning, sanding and all that things so you don't have dust whenever you are putting on the paint or stain. But repurposing could even save money, too, versus where, if you were to hire a contractor, it probably won't do a whole lot of reusing unless it's like maybe like a toilet or vanity or something, right?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think cabinets, obviously, like doors, things like that, even carpet, if it's in good shape, if you're removing it, you know, maybe you hold on to that. If you have room in your basement or room in your storage area and, you know, who knows, you might need that in a small space or something at some point. But yeah, I know a lot of people have refinished their cabinets, and I don't think it's a super hard process. You know, like you said, it's just a matter of the prep work, you know, and knowing what you're doing. Now if you are taking the cabinets out, you know, just because that's just what's going to happen. You can maybe repurpose those cabinets. Maybe you want a little space in the garage that has storage. You know, you can put them there. My aunt and uncle, when they redid their kitchen, they had like a wet bar area down in their lower level and they used some of those cabinets down in that bar area. So definitely good. So it doesn't wind up in the landfill. That's always a nice thing. But yeah, I mean, repurposing is great. And like you said, for smaller items, those tables or the, you know, a dresser that, you know, your child has maybe outgrown or aesthetically. Because, yes, it's young or whatever. Well, you know, put a coat of stain on it and you know, then. Then you've got something new, it looks new for them and they're happy about it. So. Yeah, I like that. I like that part of the diy.

Yes. For a second there, I thought you were going to say maybe colored on with crayons or markers.

That could be too, I suppose.

Yeah, even that, you know, you can repurpose that. I know one of my friends, she had a. Like a side table and her daughter Sharpie all over the whole thing. Turned her back, I think she was cooking and then turned back around and there was. Or sure enough, there it was. But she Actually did a whitewash on it. And she had no experience with it before. None at all. And you can't even tell that there was a marker there before. It looks so good, it matches the rest of her house. But additionally, because she had that first experience with the whitewashing, she actually ended up doing it on her fireplace. And she learned from that first time. And it looks amazing. And so that's another thing is the more you do diy, you're gonna learn things and you're gonna learn, you know, what worked, what didn't, what you need, what you don't need that you had maybe the first time. And so it is also a learning process too.

Yep. And I think you have to, at the very beginning, make sure that you find all the information that you can, you know, and it's not on hgtv. I mean, yes, they make that look really easy.

Yeah.

But you need to find your experts, do your research and find your experts. And like I said, whether it is someone at the hardware store or a clinic, at, you know, a Lowe's or a Home Depot, when they offer those.

Yeah.

Whether it's your father in law or your brother in law or someone who has some experience with them or even like a girlfriend who, you know, oh, you know, her bathroom turned out great. I know she did all the tile work by herself. I want to talk to her about what she did, you know, what she used, what plans she had, stuff like that. So you kind of have to find your people and find your resources. YouTube, obviously and Google have tons and tons of stuff, but you might not want to use the first one.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Even if you are talking to your friends or someone else about it, you know, ask them what would they do different on their next one or what, what suggestions do they have for me that they maybe didn't do or should do?

Right. What went right, what went wrong? Yeah, yeah.

And then the YouTube, like you're saying, you know, don't just go with the first one because it's a short video and it looks simple and easy. Not always your best option. And especially, you know, going back to, if you have to get an inspection done, you know, look at the credibility of the person who's posting it. You know, how many videos do they have do in their videos? Do they say, you know, they are a licensed expert on this thing and maybe, you know, watch a few and see if there's any kind of, you know, straight line thing that's going on in all those videos. You know, maybe they are all Starting off with the same exact step. And then maybe the first video that you watch started off something different. Maybe not do that. Something different that the one person did differently.

Right, right. Like, kind of the majority rules with this.

Absolutely.

Because everybody does have their own way of doing things. But I have to think that there are some. Some standard. You know, some standard ways to do things, and you might, like you said, start in one place, look at a bunch of different videos, see, okay, well, this person did it this way, this person did it this way, this person did it this way. And then what your circumstances might lead you down, like, that certain path. You know, like you said, you might think that, oh, I want to go with the easiest route, but when you get into it, you might see that, okay, I'm actually gonna have to follow this one because my project is more like example number B or B or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point, too, is making sure that what you're watching and. Or reading is equal or close to the project that you are doing. You know, doing a bathroom that maybe hasn't been updated since the 50s is probably different than doing a bathroom that was built and. Or remodeled in 2010.

Right.

So, you know, making sure that there's some similarities there in the videos or content that you're watching or reading, too, is a good point. I completely forgot about that one.

Yeah. But it really all comes down to preparation. You know, you can't just be sitting there on your couch and looking around and saying, all right, we're gonna redo the bathroom today.

Yeah, definitely. Don't just jump in. I mean, if you do, you know, to each their own, but expect probably something to go wrong, at least something that I would do personally is I would order more material than I would expect, because if it's an unopened box or something, you can return it.

Right.

So, you know, if I'm laying tile or something, doing tile in the bathroom or a kitchen, maybe order one extra box just to be safe. And then, like I said, if you don't touch it, you can return it.

Well, or you save it for later because things break. You know, tile cracks, and. And stuff happens. And you always want to have that. You always want to have those replacement pieces just in case something goes wrong.

So, yeah, the. Actually kind of. This is kind of talking about, you know, having the extra material being saved with that, but also repurposing. My dad actually one time was doing tile work in our kitchen, and he had ordered a couple extra boxes to be safe, and. And he had enough to actually do cut it and do backsplash on our kitchen. And it looked great. It was. I. Whenever he first told me he was doing that, I was like, that's a little weird. But then I saw it all finished, and I was like, oh, that's actually creative and a good idea. And it turned out really pretty.

Another thing about diy, sometimes what is standard that to be done, what a contractor would do. Like you said, a contractor might not think about putting that same tile as a backsplash, but your dad had it and said, this is gonna save me some money. Yeah, I think this is gonna look good. It's creative. It's not something that, you know. It's not white sub white tile, you know, like everybody else has. It's something different. It is. So that, I think, is another pro to the DIY is that you can get creative and do something a little bit different.

Yeah, absolutely.

Everybody else has, definitely.

And, I mean, there's ways about it. You know, we kind of talked about this a little bit, but there's different approaches, too, that you can go at it. You know, my dad very well could have just thrown that box in the shed and waited until maybe if something happens, or he could have returned it and done something completely different with it. But because he was doing the diy, there was more flexibility there. And, you know, he didn't have to make sure that whatever backsplash he was planning on doing originally, that it was all there. He didn't have to worry about that. The extra expenses on it, didn't have to do the hassle of, you know, going back to the store and returning it and everything. Sometimes I'm not always the best at returning things.

None of us are. Yeah, I have, like, a little box of screws sitting on my counter with the Lowe's card on top of it, and it's like, okay, how long is that going to sit there before those get returned?

Yeah, I. Guilty as charged.

Right.

Not good with returns.

Yeah, it's hard.

It is.

It's time consuming.

It is.

It's that thing that none of us have, you know, it's time. It's going to take time. So you keep the $5 box of screws, you know, or do you go and take a 15, 20 minutes out of your day to go return it? Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, that's true. Screws, though, you never know when you might need them.

Well, I know I almost kept him because of that, but I'm like, no, I have a lot. So you Know the intention is to return them.

We'll see.

Talk to me in a month. Yeah. And see if they're still sitting on my kitchen counter.

That's funny. I need to set a reminder to ask you about that.

Right. Yes, you absolutely do. But, yeah, so I think that, you know, there are cons, but there are definitely pros.

Yes, absolutely.

But the most successful DIY people are going to be the ones who are organized, planned out, done their research, budgeted more than enough time. You know, you think this is going to take 48. Double it. Double it. Like you said, your one hour project took four hours. And as you get into it, maybe if you're doing something, I mean, I think the first time we do anything, it always takes way more time.

Yes.

You know, so you have to budget that. Over budget on your spending.

That's what I was about to say. Yep. I was gonna say we haven't touched on that really a whole lot yet.

Yeah. If you think you're gonna spend a thousand dollars, pad it to pad it by. I'd say another $250.

Yeah.

You know, to be safe. For sure. You know, because otherwise you're gonna. What happens? And I guess that's the other question you have to ask yourself. You have to ask yourself, too. What happens if you go over budget? Do you have the means to maybe put it on a credit card and pay it off later, or do you not have those means and so you're gonna have to stop that project until you can get more money to buy supplies or tools or whatever?

Or do you have the means if you get into it and realize that you're maybe in over your head and you need to call in a professional, do you have the wiggle room and budget for that?

Right.

So always, I would say always overestimate. I'm really bad at it. Even when it comes to like, I don't know, like bills or groceries or something like that. I. Depending what it is, usually I always add an extra $25 to $50 onto it just to be safe.

Yeah.

I would rather over budget myself than under budget. And, you know, if you come in under. Great.

Right. Put yourself on the back.

Yeah. And then if you're right at your budget, then, you know, you know, you estimated correctly. But also, you know, it's nice because you put in that extra room for that budget.

Yes.

Where you wouldn't have originally.

Yep. So you're not, you know, so you're not panicked when things go over.

Yeah, yeah. And don't. I mean, again, you Know, you can kind of do your own thing, but me personally, I wouldn't just guess the prices of things in my head.

Oh, no, because like I said, it's changed so much in the past six months. Nine months, 18 months. You have to have an absolute solid card cost of what. What you're spending, or you will be shocked. In a bad way.

Yes. Yeah. I was gonna say, like, even paint, I have no clue how much paint is. I'm gonna guess maybe $50 a gallon. Maybe I have no clue. But if I do that and I'm wrong, and maybe it's $75 a gallon. That's a difference.

Yeah. And especially if you have to buy 4 gallons of paint, then you've just spent an extra hundred dollars that, you know, wasn't part of your budget, and that's eating into your overage, even. So. Yeah, absolutely. Accurate pricing on the items, the supplies that you have to buy.

Absolutely. Well, I think so. Kind of recapping, you know, what's the size of your project, you know, do you have the bandwidth to do it? Do you have the required skills? And are you mentally prepared to take it on?

Exactly. Right. I mean, physically, too, but yes, mentally, yeah.

I. We. So we have a. Or we're in the process of buying a house, and there's a couple of things that we need to do, and I'm like, am I going to be mentally prepared to do these things whenever we go? You know, paint, painting anything is a lot more tedious than I think people, you know, anticipate.

Right.

Especially cabinets. You know, you have to get into all those crevices. You have to get all of the edges, the openings. I mean, maybe don't have to do the insides, but you probably should.

You have to plan somewhere to put your food and your dishes for, you know, as long as it's going to take.

Yep.

So you have to plan that out, too.

Yeah.

And how many days have you worked a full day. You come home, what do you want to do? Do you want to paint cabinets, or do you want to, like, flop down on the couch with a glass of wine and watch something on Netflix?

Right.

You know.

Yeah.

So you almost have to. Like you said, mentally, it's a big deal.

It is. Yeah. And time, you know, we keep going back to that. You know, do you have. And do you want to use the time that it's going to take?

Right. Do you want your weekends and your nights, your evenings to be devoted to this? Do you want your. I mean, we're kind of done with Summer vacation. But, you know, do you want to take. Do you want to take that week off of work to do this project? Yeah. Which I think would be cool, you know, if you decided, okay, you know, this is what I'm going to do. But again, you know, think that it's going to be a three day project and then budget yourself for five.

Yep.

You know, don't think you're going back to work on day four with the kitchen unfinished and you're, you know, whoever you live with, saying, when are you going to finish this?

Yeah. Definitely expect things to go wrong. And if nothing goes wrong, then that's amazing.

Yeah. You're a unicorn.

Yeah. And, you know, like we've said before, you know, it is very rewarding once it's done to know that you did that, get a little bit of bragging rights with it and then you kind of know what to expect moving forward. Or you can help someone out who's maybe doing the same thing.

Right, Right.

So it's experience, it's knowledge, it's learning and all that. So I think DIY is great. Know your boundaries.

Start small.

Yes.

If it's your first time, start small.

Yeah.

Restain that, that dining room table. I mean, I know that doesn't sound like a. It doesn't sound like a home improvement project, but I think it teaches you certain skills that you can apply then to an actual, you know, home improvement project.

Absolutely.

It's like practice almost.

Last summer we went to go help our friends stain their deck. And, you know, walking in, we're like, oh, yeah, you know, this probably isn't gonna take that long. We start staining this deck. Oh, my gosh. It took us like almost all day between four of us and it like, you know, because we got them, we're like, oh, yeah, the deck's not that big. It's not gonna take that long. Boy, were we wrong.

Yeah.

We actually didn't even. When we left, I think we were there for six hours helping them, and we didn't really stop to, like, take any breaks. We just kind of, like, powered through it. But even when we left, there was still stuff that needed to be done on it. And again, you know, it was just. We weren't anticipating that. You know, there's. Once you get into things there, it's a lot more kind of nitty gritty. Once you get your hands in there.

Yeah. I think probably always the. The crushing moment is when you realize it's going to need another coat. You know, when you're like, be it the second coat or the third coat. Even when you're like, okay, I'm not done. I'm not even close to done. And I have to let this dry.

Yes.

You know, and then go back to it in so many hours or even the next day, you know, depending on stuff. So.

Yes. Also maybe not wear clothing that you don't want to give her.

Like. Oh, no, you have to have like, your definitely your DIY clothing. Yes, for sure.

Yeah.

Allocate that. Take it off at night, put it back on the next day. That's your outfit for your.

Yeah. My dad has a pair of blue jeans that he's had since I can ever remember. And it's always funny whenever I go over there and he's like, doing something. Usually he wears. Whenever he's like painting or something and he just re. Did the exterior of his house this past summer. And I go over there and sure enough, he's wearing those jeans. And at this point they're just like. It's just like all paint. Like, I don't know how there's any.

Like, there's no material. Yeah.

But I mean, he's like, you know, these are my work pants. He's like, I'm not ever going to get rid of them until they start just falling apart.

Right, right.

But I mean, definitely. And I mean, I'm the same way. I have a pair of pants that I ruined when I was in high school. I was painting my bedroom and I turned around and all down the leg. And those have become my diy. Your paint pants.

Right on.

And I actually worn. Wore them when we went to go stain that deck and I had stain all over.

It's almost like it becomes part of the, like, the tapestry of the clothes. You can point out the different projects that you've done by the stains on your pants.

And that's kind of fun, too. I never thought of it that way, but yeah, for sure. There was one last thing I wanted to kind of talk about. We talked about it previously. That was a good tip and I'm going to use it. You actually suggested it, but with even like doing hardware on cabinets or something, I was telling Jen that I'm like, that's going to be super difficult because then you have to, like, measure them all out, make sure they're all even, you know, know exactly where you want to put them. And you gave me a great idea. Yeah.

Because one of our houses had cabinets that didn't have any poles or anything on them. And my dad came to help me with it. And, and he actually made a template. So we decided where, you know, on that cabinet we wanted the hole and, and drilled that first one. And then I think we just used like a little post it and put it in the corner, put the little pencil mark in it. And then you line that up with each door, and that's where you drill your hole.

So see, that's genius because I would have measured everything. Probably measured every single one. Yeah, that's hilarious. I mean, even with hanging, I think we briefly talked about, like, hanging things, and there's some tips and tricks there. My brother, he taught me away. He was like, I'm the type of person where I'll just like, look at something and measure with my eye. And I was hanging up a three piece kind of wall art, and my brother walked in, he's like, what are you doing?

Was it all crooked?

No, it was actually like, pretty level. But I mean, I hadn't like, put any holes in the wall yet. I was trying to figure out, like, where exactly I wanted it. So I was doing a little bit of measuring. Make sure that the two end pieces would at least be like, in the middle.

Yes.

And he, he gets out the measuring tape and he's like, measuring from the ceiling, from the side, measuring how far the gaps need to be. And I was like, yeah, you're doing that way more in depth than I would have. I didn't even think to measure from the ceiling down. And they are even throughout. They're right on the middle of the wall. They all have even gaps.

But see, that's great because I am an obsessive measurer because I feel like my eyes must be, be like at different levels of my face, because I swear I can't even see a straight line. So I'm the one measuring from the ceiling, from each side, the gaps, doing, like, higher math in the middle of it. All right, well, it's this long. I need to divide it by this and then I need to add this. And then how far is it down from the frame? But they say measure twice, cut once. I measure like 10 times, I swear, before I put that hole in the wall. Because I just don't. I don't want to have to do it over.

But.

But DIY, I think, is about trial and error sometimes.

Absolutely. Yeah.

So, you know, put it in a corner where nobody's gonna see it. If, you know, if you want to do that, that practice piece or whatever, and you're putting the tile on, put it, put it. You know, you actually, with tile, I Think have to start at your focal point and kind of work out because you, you know, you want it to be a certain. A certain look.

Yeah.

But I would wonder if you could take, like, a smaller project or a little more hidden project and. And do that to practice on it first and kind of get your bearings and get your, you know, figure out how much. Much grout you need and how much, you know, this and that and, you know, thought about a grout.

My dad asked me to help him. Oh, gosh. Not grout, but, like, spack or. Oh. With the gun to seal things. I guess it's kind of like grout.

Okay.

I can't think.

Like a caulk gun.

Yes.

Thank you. Okay.

He asked me to help caulk one time, and it was absolutely horrible. And I've been traumatized ever since then. I have no caulking. He walked over and he was like, what are you doing? There was like, just like a big.

Gulp, like, bubble blob caulk.

And I was like, sorry, dad. But you mentioned something that also kind of sparked something, is this isn't really, you know, like, as far as, like, renovations or anything. This is, again, more crafty. But, you know, if you're wanting to do, like, a collage on a wall of, like, picture frames or something. I have never done this, but I know a friend who's done it. She took notebook paper and figured out the size of her picture frames and how she just taped them on the wall and. And different, like, angles and whatnot and spacing. And then she just took the picture frame. She put a hole or she took her nail and put it, like, right in the middle or wherever she wanted it. And then you can just rip the paper off. And then she hung her picture frames, and it was perfect.

I was like, that's super smart that I.

If I would have just, like, used my eyes to do that and just started hanging things, it probably would have been awful. I would probably be like, it's okay.

We'Ll go with it.

Or end up putting several holes in the walls.

Yeah, I've done that.

So that's another good tip.

And that's a form of templating, too.

Yeah.

She's putting up a template for her pictures before she actually commits to where she's going to nail into that wall. So, yeah, I mean, it is. It's like anything you can do to kind of practice before you do actual to do something you can't undo.

Yeah. Another good thing that I think we previously talked about is if you Are building a new home is. You know, I'm in the process. We were buying a new build, so we were able to kind of walk it and see, you know, all the studs and the framework and everything. Something that we did was we walked through every single room and recorded and took pictures that way. Whenever we close on it and go to move in, we know where the studs are to hang things or where not to hang things or where to drill. Not to drill. Things like that. Especially, you know, like hanging up a TV or things like that. We know where we can do that, and we know what's behind those walls. So I would say that is a really good tip for those who are buying new builds.

Right.

Or Right.

Rehabbing. You have new drywall and stuff like that. You know, if you can take a look at that and just kind of like you said, take a picture with your tape measure of. Okay, it's this far from the wall. And then I know they're every 18 inches, you know, then that can. That can definitely help.

Yeah.

Not have to, because it's always the last place I drill is where the. The stud is. You know, I love those wall anchors. I rely on those a lot.

Yes.

Because sometimes you don't want to hang it where the stud is, you know, and you gotta do other stuff. Yeah. I have had a. I had a really heavy mirror that they actually had really almost specialized wall hang wall anchors that you would put in, and then they would kind of like. Like almost explode out, you know, to hold certain. A certain weight.

Yeah.

Because especially if you have to put, like, two in, I mean, what are your chances of finding, like, two studs?

Yeah.

So true.

Or that are at the distance that you need.

Right, Exactly.

Yeah, that's a good point, too.

Yeah, man, this is good.

Yeah, this was good. Well, do you have anything else that you want to add?

Not that I can think of. Yeah, not today. I'm sure two weeks from now, I'll see something else.

I'll be like, yeah, so, you know, do your research and try to, you know, be organized with it, plan accordingly, things like that.

I think that's the key. Yep, definitely.

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed and took a little bit of some golden nuggets from it. Hopefully. We always like to end these with invest smart, live happy. Bye, guys. Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions and information on this show are not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss.