DIY Reno or Not

often I get emails asking whether do I think home owners should do the reno themselves or hire an ID to do the job.

let me put it this way.

Either
you pay someone who does the job for you while you are earning more money or having a starbucks coffee, chillax with your colleagues or friends, if not spending time with your family or fulfilling your travel bucket list. You pay for the time that don't need your time. Get it?

or

you do your own homework, scroll down thousand and one websites to learn the ropes. In other words, to do your own reno, if you are not experienced, be prepared that your reno will take a longer time than required.  To do all these, you must have time and patience. End of the day, most probably you might have quite a good self satisfaction.

this is a short summary.

here comes the longer part: (you can skip it if you don't want to read)

you pay the ID to do the following things, more or less, things that you probably aren't good at

1. design & space planning
2. drawing up 2d drawings
3. building up 3d drawings
4. telling you whether your kitchen appliances fit or not
5. what sizes of toilet bowl and sinks to buy
6. giving you a quotation , reno budget
7. project manage during the reno - thousand and one phonecalls to be made like to the contractor, the electrician, the tiler, the partition works guy, the plumber, the aircon guy, the carpenter etc etc
8. tell you how many lights to buy, what kind of lights to buy, what size of lampshades to get
9. tell you where you should put your powerpoints and how high
10. decide how to run your electrical wirings, how best to conceal them
11. what kind of tiles to buy, what sizes to choose, what goes with what and how to lay the tiles on site
12. the type of laminates to choose, believe me, there are thousand and one laminates and so many different catalogues to choose from
13. the colour PVC to choose, again selection can be quite tiring now
14. the different types of countertop to go for
15. choosing painting colours
16. choosing electrical faceplates
17. do things which you might take days to do, your ID most probably does it in less than half the time that is required.

these are just some basic items, every home reno is different so the list is not exhaustive.

ultimately the call is yours.