Before you decide that your next home renovation / improvement project should be a do it yourself job, it's important to consider all the pros and cons of either course of action. Whether or not you can do it yourself depends on a number of important factors.
Doing home renovation / improvement projects are always cheaper if you do them yourself, right? While that may be true in theory – after all, you save all the labor costs by DIY-ing your home improvement project – in actual practice your mileage may vary. Before you decide that money trumps a good job, evaluate your skills at doing the various tasks involved in pulling off your project. Your inexperience could lead you to overestimate the amount of supplies you need, costing you more money – or to waste a lot of resources because of poor planning or outright mistakes. And if you don't have the professional tools you need to do a job properly, you'll have to add the cost of buying or renting them to your project budget.
Unless you're a professional or a dedicated hobbyist – or you manage to hire an incompetent contractor – you'll almost always get higher quality work on your home renovation / improvement projects if you hire a pro to get it done. Professional contractors have access to tools and resources that you probably don't have, which makes it easier for them to get a high quality results. The more experience you have in home renovation / improvement projects, the closer you'll come to getting high quality work when you do it yourself. Of course, the best quality depends on getting the best, most professional contractors to handle your job.
Contractors are notorious for not finishing a job on time – but the reality is that most local contractors and builders can do your home renovation / improvement projects faster than you can. On the other hand, doing it yourself means that you can get it done when you want to do it rather than having to wait until a contractor has time to fit your project in. And of course, there's the fact that your time is valuable, too. Consider the things you won't be able to do if you decide to invest your time in a complicated home improvement project.
None of those factors will matter if you're one of those people who happen to enjoy doing home renovation / improvement projects yourself. If, when all is said and done, you'll get more fun out of doing it yourself than you'll get enjoyment out of using the finished project, then by all means – skip the contractor and dive right in to do it yourself.
Read some tips before starting and planning your house renovations.