When confronted with the need to carry out repairs or renovations around the home, an individual is often faced with the question: should I take this task on myself, or should I use a contractor to execute the task for me?
In such difficult economic times as these, it is unquestionably tempting to make plans to do "fix-it" tasks on your own. But, there are some serious considerations that you should make before you determine whether or not you are in fact best-off to "do it yourself", or if you would really be in a better position to pay for the trained experience of a Kelowna contractor.
When assessing your situation, take the following questions into contemplation:
1. How much of my time will be necessary to make this repair? How much time will it take me to learn how to do the work, and then actually implement the task?
2. How much do I think this repair will cost in the long run? What will the total expense of the materials and the equipment rentals be? How much extra will I expend on the small "incidentals" that will have me running back to the hardware store over and over again?
3. Am I in fact competent to do this piece of work, or am I being a touch hopeful/optimistic? What is my real proficiency level?
4. Have a I in truth weighed out all of my alternatives, or am I just assuming that a contractor will be "too high-priced"?
To give the best illustration of a real-life situation, I will now address of my own experience in choosing to put down ceramic tiles in my kitchen, bathroom, en suite and hall, as opposed to employing a flooring specialist to come in and do it for me.
In 2008, I purchased a home that having been built in 1987, was a true "fixer-upper". The house had some very grungy, 22 year old linoleum in the aforementioned rooms, but my wife and I determined that we would be able to take care of the flooring ourselves, as opposed to forking money over for a flooring guy to come in and place tile for us. After all, I am a fairly handy guy --- I worked my way through University by doing some labor work in the trades, so I figured I could do something as simple as laying tile!
So we went to Home Depot and got $700 worth of ceramic flooring tiles. Then we spent some extra cash on the "little things" like grout, sealant, small tools, spacers, etc. Finally, we had to rent our tile cutter, at a fee of just about $100/day (which we ended up needing for about three days!). With high hopes, a group of buddies who swore to have tiling knowledge, and after having purchased sufficient beer, burgers, hot dogs and pizza to feed each person as we worked, we spent a weekend doing our floors.
In the end, we did the best job we could and we had a good time doing it, but with our inexperience, we made mistakes. In some rooms, the tiles are not quite aligned perfectly. Because we mixed quite a few different batches of grout over the weekend, the grout does not all match up in color (it was all the same brand name and color of grout, but someone must have used too much water and changed the consistency on a couple of batches so in some places our grout looks the light tan color it is supposed to, and in other spots it is a darker, "muddy" color). Most awful of all, in our kitchen and main bathroom -- the high traffic areas -- something went wrong and after a couple of months, tiles began popping out and cracking and the grout all started to fall out in chunks.
In the end, the tiles in our en suite and foyer look fine, but our kitchen and bathroom tiles need to be totally ripped out and replaced. We ended up spending an easy $1200 tiling our floors, and spent a long weekend worth of time doing it, and now we are back to square one in two out of the four rooms we did and needing to re-do the flooring, for the second time in only two years! In retrospect, had we hired a specialist Kelowna contractor to come in and do the task over a day or two, we would have paid the same or maybe slightly more, but we would not have to worry about re-doing those floors again for the time that we live in this house. Now, we will have to pay another $1000 or so at least to "fix" our "do it yourself" mistakesmy wife and I agree that we'd have been financially better off to just have hired the professional to tile our floors the first time around!
In such difficult economic times as these, it is unquestionably tempting to make plans to do "fix-it" tasks on your own. But, there are some serious considerations that you should make before you determine whether or not you are in fact best-off to "do it yourself", or if you would really be in a better position to pay for the trained experience of a Kelowna contractor.
When assessing your situation, take the following questions into contemplation:
1. How much of my time will be necessary to make this repair? How much time will it take me to learn how to do the work, and then actually implement the task?
2. How much do I think this repair will cost in the long run? What will the total expense of the materials and the equipment rentals be? How much extra will I expend on the small "incidentals" that will have me running back to the hardware store over and over again?
3. Am I in fact competent to do this piece of work, or am I being a touch hopeful/optimistic? What is my real proficiency level?
4. Have a I in truth weighed out all of my alternatives, or am I just assuming that a contractor will be "too high-priced"?
To give the best illustration of a real-life situation, I will now address of my own experience in choosing to put down ceramic tiles in my kitchen, bathroom, en suite and hall, as opposed to employing a flooring specialist to come in and do it for me.
In 2008, I purchased a home that having been built in 1987, was a true "fixer-upper". The house had some very grungy, 22 year old linoleum in the aforementioned rooms, but my wife and I determined that we would be able to take care of the flooring ourselves, as opposed to forking money over for a flooring guy to come in and place tile for us. After all, I am a fairly handy guy --- I worked my way through University by doing some labor work in the trades, so I figured I could do something as simple as laying tile!
So we went to Home Depot and got $700 worth of ceramic flooring tiles. Then we spent some extra cash on the "little things" like grout, sealant, small tools, spacers, etc. Finally, we had to rent our tile cutter, at a fee of just about $100/day (which we ended up needing for about three days!). With high hopes, a group of buddies who swore to have tiling knowledge, and after having purchased sufficient beer, burgers, hot dogs and pizza to feed each person as we worked, we spent a weekend doing our floors.
In the end, we did the best job we could and we had a good time doing it, but with our inexperience, we made mistakes. In some rooms, the tiles are not quite aligned perfectly. Because we mixed quite a few different batches of grout over the weekend, the grout does not all match up in color (it was all the same brand name and color of grout, but someone must have used too much water and changed the consistency on a couple of batches so in some places our grout looks the light tan color it is supposed to, and in other spots it is a darker, "muddy" color). Most awful of all, in our kitchen and main bathroom -- the high traffic areas -- something went wrong and after a couple of months, tiles began popping out and cracking and the grout all started to fall out in chunks.
In the end, the tiles in our en suite and foyer look fine, but our kitchen and bathroom tiles need to be totally ripped out and replaced. We ended up spending an easy $1200 tiling our floors, and spent a long weekend worth of time doing it, and now we are back to square one in two out of the four rooms we did and needing to re-do the flooring, for the second time in only two years! In retrospect, had we hired a specialist Kelowna contractor to come in and do the task over a day or two, we would have paid the same or maybe slightly more, but we would not have to worry about re-doing those floors again for the time that we live in this house. Now, we will have to pay another $1000 or so at least to "fix" our "do it yourself" mistakesmy wife and I agree that we'd have been financially better off to just have hired the professional to tile our floors the first time around!
About the Author:
Employing a professional Kelowna contractor to perform your home repairs and renovations will save you money and time! From painters to home builders, carpenters to electricians, find the perfect contractor to suit your needs at Kelowna Contractors!
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