The Trouble With DIYing; A Series

Fitzpatrick-I admire Peg’s admiration of the Doing going on after Katrina, and of the folks who Do on their own houses; especially if they learn something. DIYing with an open mind, care, money and a boatload of humility can produce some wonderful understandings, appreciations and pride in one’s developing skills. The problem I have with the whole DIY movement is when homeowners, and the home improvement industry, become arrogant about their relatively poor skills and disrespectful and dismissive of the history and legacy of the building trades.

My parents were DIY’ers. God help them, they still are, at 70 and 75. And as I’ve mentioned before, all three of their children became professionals; I’m a designer, one brother installs solar energy systems and the other is a B-licensed general contractor in California. We grew up watching two decades of cost-cutting, short-cuts, inefficiencies and half-assed construction; all while praises rained down for economy, ingenuity and design quality for a quasi-modern whole-house remodel (degradation) of a classic airplane bungalow. After this raising, we had to go out and try to balance the scale.

If you DIY, congratulations; you are either brave or ignorant. Be aware that you:

1. Will not be able do a trade better than someone who has spent 20 years doing it.
2. You cannot buy the same quality materials from a home center as you can from a specialty supplier.
3. You will be blissfully unaware of how bad your job actually is.

Now I must go. I’m late for my weekly gestalt session.