DIY, Tips

3 Reasons Your DIY Projects Are Missing The Mark

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If you were to believe YouTube videos and Pinterest tutorials, home DIY is incredibly easy. All you need is a few basic tools, an online tutorial, and a can-do attitude— and you’ll be able to turn your home into a haven in the space of a single afternoon.

Reality… doesn’t quite work like that.

The truth is that DIY is incredibly difficult, even for people who consider themselves to have some experience in this regard. We all know that there are some DIY jobs you probably shouldn’t do, but even the ones you can attempt aren’t necessarily going to go your way.

If you’re not seeing the results you want from your home DIY projects, then one of these three common causes is likely to be to blame…

#1 – You’re trying something outside of your skillset

Unless you are formally qualified in a trade, almost everything that you do with regards to DIY is going to be somewhat alien to you. While your knowledge might improve over time, you’re going to have to spend years honing your abilities.

In the meantime, you’re likely to find yourself extremely frustrated by the majority of DIY tasks. If something is outside of your skillset, of course, you’re going to struggle to complete it. It’s important to pick and choose your DIY tasks, and only start work on those you know you have a good chance of being able to complete.

#2 – You’re overconfident

Overconfidence and DIY do not go well together. It’s overconfidence that leads to mistakes; that leads to you assuming it’ll be fine to knock down what turns out to be a load-bearing wall or drill into a wall and suddenly find yourself flooded and having to frantically call all the emergency plumbers you can find in your local area.

Interestingly, both newbies and near-professionals can suffer from overconfidence. As a general rule, if you decide to do any DIY task on the assumption it’ll be easy, then you’re at risk of overconfidence— so take extra steps to try to avoid this becoming a problem.

#3 – You’re substituting items and techniques

Let’s say you find the perfect tutorial for hanging wallpaper on YouTube. You understand the instructions, you’re delighted by the promised finish result, and you’re keen to give it a go. Then you discover that you’ve got the right kind of wallpaper paste, but hey, what can that matter? You’ll try anyway… and you’ll also have to use a brush when the tutorial used a roller, because you don’t have any brushes, but surely the basic idea is still the same?

It isn’t. The above is just one example of over-substitution, which primarily occurs for the sake of convenience. If you’re trying to get a specific kind of result, then you need to use the right tools for the job— no substitutions. It’s better to delay for a day while you go shopping than to go ahead and then have to spend even longer correcting your mistakes.

In conclusion

By correcting the issues above, you should be able to complete more DIY jobs to meet your exacting standards. Enjoy!

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    May 16, 2018 at 10:35 am

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