A kitchen remodel boasting a professional, luxurious touch doesn’t happen with a DIY approach. Unless you are a licensed, experienced contractor, it’s impossible to complete any remodel or renovation with the expertise of a professional.
4 Ways You Spend More With a DIY Kitchen Remodel
We appreciate some of our clients’ high-level skills, and we completely understand the desire to “save money” by embracing a DIY approach. However, after decades in the business, we’ve seen the opposite is more likely to be true.
You wouldn’t believe how many times we’ve been called for “do-overs” because the outcome of our client’s botched remodel, seemingly “minor” imperfections that became too glaring for them to ignore, or because they got halfway through and realized there was more to it than they thought.
Ultimately, it’s always more affordable to work with professional kitchen remodelers and a solid budget than to attempt a kitchen remodel on your own.
Here are four of the most common, costly mistakes DIYers make.
1. Prioritizing Form Over Function
Prioritizing form over function is one of the most common mistakes clients make when designing their remodel. Our first consultations with clients are almost always dedicated to reversing this paradigm.
It’s essential to think about how you use your kitchen and how kitchen flow, organization, and efficiency should evolve with this remodel and into the future. Only then can you begin thinking about form (all those gorgeous selections you’re so excited about).
When you fail to address function at the outset, you wind up with a kitchen that might look great but costs you in terms of daily frustration and inefficiency. It will make you wish you could do it all over again, and that’s heartbreaking.
2. Being Unprepared (or Unqualified) to Handle the Unexpected
Remodeling requires various degrees of demo work, and you never know what you’ll find.
If you were excited about saving money on the idea of DIY cabinet and countertop installation, you’ll be less enthusiastic when tearing out existing cabinets reveals unexpected issues you’re not prepared to address.
When we rip out a kitchen that’s 20+ years old, we commonly find:
- Plumbing or electrical work that isn’t up to code.
- Structural rot from former or latent leaks.
- Rodent damage in interior wall spaces.
- Asbestos products
- Lead paint
- Mold/mildew infestations
All must be addressed before work continues, requiring additional building permits, inspections, and contractor expertise most DIY homeowners don’t have.
You’ll inevitably have to hire professionals, costing far more than it would have if you were already in contract with a kitchen remodeling firm.
3. Believing It’s As Easy as YouTube Makes It Seem
The YouTube revolution provides infinite education on DIY work, but that doesn’t mean it’s as easy as it looks.
First, you need the right tools- that means all of the right tools. We guarantee the local hardware stores’ “rent-a-tool” offerings do not deliver the quality results required for clean cuts and pristine finish work.
Above and beyond the standard set of tools you’d have on hand, including table saws and routers, you’ll need:
- Multiple types of demo bars
- A tile cutter
- Miter saw
- Clamps of all sizes
- Drywall trowels (drywall finish work is not to be taken lightly; error and divet-free work requires years of experience)
- Impact driver
- Grout rake
- Worktop jig
- Jigsaw
- Large levels (preferably laser levels)
- Chalk line
- Plumb bob
- Metal files
- Wood rasps
And the list goes on.
Then, you need the finishing expertise to go with it. Can anyone install pre-fab cabinets? Sure. Can they do it well enough that the trim lines up, the countertops are plumb, cabinet doors don’t swing back open again if they aren’t completely latched closed, etc.? Rarely.
We guarantee your DIY kitchen remodel can be picked apart by any qualified contractor. The results are just not up to professional craftsmanship levels. If you want luxury outcomes, invest in luxury kitchen remodel pros.
4. You Pay More (Without Access to The Same Quality)
First, you won’t have access to the same pricing breaks we get as licensed design-builders. You don’t have the relationships we have, the insider knowledge accumulated over years of connecting with the most respected suppliers, or the partnerships we make with local artisans and craftsmen yielding one-of-a-kind custom fixtures/features.
Plus, we never sell anything less than the highest-quality products, and you get what you pay for in kitchen remodeling. Pre-fab kitchen features are not saving you time and money; they’ll fall apart, require far more maintenance, and never give you that professional-quality aesthetics you’re looking for when updating or renovating a kitchen.
Finally, you don’t have a finished kitchen remodel with accompanying warranties. If anything looks wonky or doesn’t work correctly, repairs and replacements primarily come out of pocket. In the end, the lifetime costs of your DIY project may approach or exceed the one-and-done costs of a professional kitchen remodel – and it will never look as good.
Ditch DIY & Save Money With Professional Kitchen Remodelers
Are you on the fence about hiring professionals or saving money with a DIY kitchen remodel? We’d love to meet with you. Schedule a consultation with Details Construction Group. You aren’t obligated to work with us, but we are happy to talk about how DIY projects go wrong so you can determine whether or not it’s the right path for you.
We’re also willing to work with you, performing the larger remodeling tasks that are most likely to show a DIYer’s hand, leaving the rest to you. Let’s talk about the possibilities so you can move forward with confidence.
