Professional Kitchen Renovators vs DIY
When you want to update your kitchen, you have a simple choice at the start; to DIY or to pay for professional kitchen renovators. There’s normally only one reason to go the DIY route and that’s to save money.
There is no doubt that renovating or even just remodelling your kitchen is a big job and hard work. These types of DIY projects require skills, knowledge and experience. You could choose to do some things yourself and leave the rest to a pro, but this requires close collaboration with your reno company. Let’s look at the pros and cons of DIYing your own kitchen.
Do You Really Have the DIY Skills?
Do you really have all the skills and experience to do all the steps in a project? A complete renovation may include electrical and plumbing work not to mention some building work. Do you even have all the tools? Here’s a breakdown of some of the skills needed to renovate a kitchen:
Building work - like knocking down walls
Plumbing - knowing the best way to solve a problem
Electrics - this should only ever be left to a qualified electrician yet many don’t
Tiling - seems easy but why do tilers exist?
Cabinetry - we all like to assemble and install an IKEA unit, but a whole kitchen?
Project management and workflow - coordinating all the above and accurately calculating timeframes
If you think you (or your friends) have the skillset above, then DIY might be a great solution to save money.
Budgeting
Professional kitchen companies will be masters at budgeting. They’ll have access to trade prices and more items to choose from. This not only saves time but also makes the cost accurate. Costing yourself is no easy feat, but one of the biggest pitfalls of DIY is going over budget, and then over time. It’s hard to budget for your own time, and the cost if things go wrong whereas the pros will likely be more accurate and fix most things at no extra cost.
Design
The design aspect of your kitchen is another crucial part, obviously linked heavily to budgeting. Choosing the wrong layout will be very costly, and knowing what mistakes to avoid will be too. Whilst it’s definitely possible to get a good design nailed yourself, the pros will again be able to squeeze more functional features and space from your original idea.
Summary
There is really only one benefit to large and complex DIY projects like kitchen renovations, and that is to save money. But the cons associated with DIY are very high, plus the unforeseen downsides like time lost, inconvenience, danger and then the extra cost for a pro to fix it. Liaising with a renovator and doing some of the jobs yourself like assembly, cabinetry, flooring and tiling are all things that can be removed from a quote, or worked upon with by careful planning with your contractor. But it’s easy to see why most people will get a professional kitchen renovator.