DIY Renovating – Reconstructing Life Lessons – Part 1:
Introduction:
I’ve always had a passion for building stuff. Outside my professional construction career, I have actively engaged my whole life in ‘Do It Yourself’ (DIY) projects. As a kid I hung around dad’s garage workshop. By sixteen I was well accustomed to rebuilding car brakes, suspensions and engines.
I brought my first house at 23. Never opened a tin of paint before then, let alone renovated a house.
I paid $75,000 AUD for that house, three times my annual wage as a graduate Architect in 1986. In 2024 the median house price in that same City is $910,000 with a median wage being $85,000. I was very lucky!
After a lick of paint, some new carpet, a ‘wonder kid’ new kitchen (totally impractical but it looked funky), well I sold that house twelve months latter for $125,000. I made two years wages completely tax free! Needless to say, I was hooked on renovating crappy old houses and selling them on. I followed that passion for 40 years.
Life Lessons Learnt from DIY:
Of all the things I discovered that are as applicable to successful DIY as they are to life in general, I would include the following:
- Preparation,
- Planning,
- Have the right tools,
- Be resilient, expect things to go wrong, learn how to adapt,
- Have and follow a vision, and
- Don’t be afraid to ask the help of experienced experts.
Current Project DIY on a Grand Scale:
My current, and hopefully last project, is a 1890’s farmhouse I purchased some 20 years previously. I’m undertaking part refurbishment part extension. Phase 1 includes remodeling a rather tired old kitchen.
It’s all DIY. Though I have an electrician undertaking the seriously dangerous stuff.
Since it’s keeping me rather busy, I don’t have time for my usual Postcard history dabblings – So I thought I would maintain a journal of my experiences. Yes, some of my thoughts on life, and some insight into successful DIY for beginners.
WTF has Winston Churchill got to do with it?
It’s not well known that old Winnie was a qualified brick layer.
Winston in his long and turbulent political life had periods of deep depression, and periods out of power in the political wilderness. In such times he built walls, small cottages and ponds at his home. He found solitude in humble labour, it quieted his troubled soul, it gave him great satisfaction.
Indeed, for many DIY does precisely that, I have certainly experienced the same outcomes.
Then there is the practical benefit of doing it yourself – dollars saved. Building today is very expensive. And renovations are particularly so. Builders find them risky, too many potential unknowns, damp, leaking roofs and walls, termites, bad footings and so on. And old 1890’s farmhouses, well they a crooked, old hardwood is well very hard, and difficult to drill and work around.
Thanks for your attention.
Part 2 will introduce my planning and preparation, and can be reviewed here.
