It’s one in a string of otherwise forgettable early-career, pre-stardom Tom Hanks films. But more than three decades on, “The Money Pit” offers a cautionary tale, still relevant today, on the financial perils of poor do-it-yourself home fixer-up work.
Of course, DIY home repairs don’t have to be that way. And usually they’re not, with DIY work presenting homeowners with opportunities to save money and have fun, all while giving them a chance to feel more personally invested in homes where they sleep each night and raise families.
To make DIY work worthwhile, homeowners need to properly plan out budgets. And they must be realistic about what DIY projects they’re capable of undertaking and completing, which also involves knowing when it’s time to call in a professional—a handyman, or for more advanced projects, a contractor.
Some people are natural hands-on types who like to fix things. Others, even those with less technical knowledge and experience, enjoy the challenges—like hikers and backpackers sleeping outdoors, who insist on starting campfires through natural means, rather than using a match.
“I do a lot of furniture refinishing. I’m not trained in any way. I’m very self-taught,” says Marci Phillips, a Baltimore County resident who did several DIY projects during the pandemic.
She looked at her house and decided that changes needed to be made, and she found the perfect mix for her self-taught skills and a sudden abundance of free time during the COVID pandemic.
“I took the carpet off of my stairs and sanded those down and stained them. And then I built a 1200-gallon pond in my backyard,” Phillips says.
She notes that the quotes given to her on those projects were very expensive and led her to start doing it on her own, before realizing that she could do the entire thing herself.
However, that approach isn’t always the route people go, as many homeowners want a mix of some limited DIY repair work, with a plan to call in a pro for larger jobs.
A lot of these partial DIY projects are done because of the varying skill sets of people and their comfort levels dealing with specific areas of construction, according to Scott Miller, owner of a handyman business in Lutherville.
“Some people that I know will change an outlet, but they won’t install a faucet,” Miller says. “I think it’s [based on] what their level of comfort is, what they’ve done before, and then I get some people who try a project and get part of the way through it, and then call me.”
DIY Tips Abound
DIY improvements often are a matter of straight-up cost consideration. Buying a home these days is expensive enough, and adding on repair costs can make the whole experience unaffordable.
Not surprisingly, DIY tips abound online. The site doityouself.com has an elaborate home section. Decorating and Painting, Interior Home Improvement and Plumbing & HVAC are among several categories offering granular, detailed tips that include “How to Install a Sink Cabinet Base,” “15 DIY Projects You Can Do to Save Water” and many more.
“I mostly looked online [for DIY tips], and I was looking into DIY groups and I watched some YouTube videos and blogs. Some of them were professional blogs, and some of them were people who were like, ‘Hey, I did this myself and here’s some tips.’ So it was really looking online. And communicating with people either directly or looking at websites that provided that information,” Phillips says.
Home repair has long been a popular cultural plotline, peaking with the 1990s-era Tim Allen hit, “Home Improvement,” even if the carpentry and other fixer-upper segments were usually side-themes to more conventional suburban, teen-male storylines. DIY work has featured on the small screen most recently with “Property Brothers,” the Canadian reality television series featuring twin brothers Drew Scott and Jonathan Scott. In the show (which aired on HGTV in the United States), the brotherly pair helps families find, buy and transform fixer-uppers into dream homes, on strict timelines and budgets.
But most DIY types don’t have television stars to help them out. As the star-crossed “Money Pit” couple finds out, there are plenty of DIY pitfalls to avoid.
Slow Housing Market Affects DIY
How much time and effort homeowners want to put into DIY repairs has, of late, been influenced by the sluggish housing market across the nation.
That, plus the expensive rate of contractors and other handymen relative to DIY, makes hiring them difficult to rationalize or afford at times.
That’s all had a practical effect of people wanting to fix up their current homes, rather than potentially buying new houses.
“Cost definitely has a lot to do with why I ended up doing a lot of the work around the house that I do,” says Baltimore County resident Ben Sugerman, who did several DIY projects in his home, including a master bathroom and shower renovation.
So, people planning to stay for a good long time are often particularly attracted to DIY work.
“I had not intended to do much of that work myself until I got a bill for a painter putting a coat of primer on new drywall,” Sugerman says. “I realized that I was going to go broke. … I don’t want to say any disrespect to the contractors—they need to earn a living and this guy did good work—but I just thought that’s an hour of my time that I had and $20 of paint and that I could do it.”
