Home Makeover? Now You Can Do It Yourself

What Has Changed?

The internet has advanced us as a nation, society, and as individuals. You can get on the world wide web and do anything that you want to do. It is full of information on every subject imaginable, and with the click of a button you can look up anything. This has helped us become a do-it-yourself (DIY) generation and you see more and more people doing things themselves, especially around the home. Television networks have even picked up on this new trend and capitalized on it by creating do-it-yourself home improvement shows, and there are even DIY networks. Let’s go over a few of these do-it-yourself activities to give your home a new, fresh look and feel.

Garbage Disposal

You might think that you need a professional plumber for this, but it actually is quite simple. I replaced one myself about three months ago and it took about an hour and a half and just a few simple tools. First, you want to make sure that the water is turned off and the electricity that goes to the garbage disposal is turned off. All garbage disposals are attached to the sink with a harness and most harnesses will fit any garbage disposal. I guess you could say that they are universal. To remove the old garbage disposal, all you need to do is untwist it from the harness and disconnect the hoses. Once you get it out of there, you can start the installation of the new one. Simply twist the new one into the harness and then start connecting the hoses. You will need a hammer, a pair of pliers, a flathead screwdriver, and a regular Philips screw driver. Once you get everything connected, there will be a red button on the bottom of the garbage disposal, a reset button, and you will need to press that before it will work. Then you can turn the water and the electricity back on and try out your new garbage disposal. If you were to call a plumber to complete this for you, it would cost around 200 dollars so you just saved yourself quite a bit of money just by doing it yourself.

Bathroom Makeover

Getting a new bathroom is like getting a new car. It will make you feel better and it will make you want to spend more time there. To start your new bathroom makeover, you need to clean everything out. Basically everything that is not attached to the floor needs to come out of the bathroom. If there are any wood cabinets, then you will need to take off the cabinet door and take out the drawers so that you can sand them down. You can sand them by hand with sandpaper or with an electric sander. Any wood that is in the bathroom will need to be sanded so that you can either re-stain it or paint it. If you currently have any wallpaper on the walls, you will need to remove it. Wallpaper will make your bathroom look dated and we are going for a cleaner, more modern look. Inspect the walls and see if they need to be kilts before you paint them. Kilts is a product that you apply to the wall, just like paint, but you do it first before painting. Now we need to remove the fixtures from the bathroom so they can be replaced. If you have a bathtub that currently doesn’t have shower capabilities then we will need to install a shower diverter and a shower head. Next, you will paint the bathroom and the cabinets, and then put the cabinet doors back on and insert the drawers back in. Then we will install the new fixtures that you chose and you can even put up a new mirror to give it the added touch.

Restoring Furniture

This is a fun activity that will not only make your furniture look like it cost thousands of dollars, but it’s an activity that can actually turn into a hobby for you. For your first time, you should pick a small nightstand or small dresser until you get the hang of it. The furniture needs to be made of wood for this process to work properly. You must first clean the furniture, and you can do this with just a warm, damp rag. Wipe down every inch of the piece that you are redoing and repeat the process several times over the course of two or three days. You can get a product called chalk paint at your local home improvement store, and this works best for repainting furniture. Once you have picked out the color, you are going to apply the first coat of paint. This needs to dry overnight and then you apply the second coat. Inspect the furniture and see if the color is what you expected; if you want it to be a little darker, then you may need to apply a third coat. If you prefer the flat look, then you don’t need to apply anything else, but if you want a shinier look, then you can apply a gloss to finish it. The entire process will take about a week to complete, but for the cost of the paint and gloss, you will have furniture that looks brand new and expensive.

All of these simple do-it-yourself ideas are pretty simple and easy for almost anyone to follow. Give yourself plenty of time to complete the task. If you get stuck, you can always refer to the internet for additional instructions. You can save a lot of money doing things yourself if you are willing to put in the time, and you don’t get aggravated easily. Once you tackle small projects like these and you build your confidence, then you can move on to bigger or more complex projects.