D.I.Y…. More Like Bye!

To your sanity and time you thought you had. 

It’s no secret that do it yourself projects have risen in the past years due to changing circumstances. Shifting workplace, contact, and education norms were revisited and more people found themselves pacing around their homes with time to spare. 

While D.I.Y adventures can be large, there are also a lot of smaller D.I.Ys that take up very little of your time. These are things such as lawn care, home maintenance, and decorating. While the tasks can be tedious, they often only take up 4-5 hours of your time. After coming home from a long day of work, errands, and bills, it can be incentivizing to relax and hire someone to clean out your dryer vent. Their 30 minutes of expertise is worth the cost considering your time, effort, and daily exhaustions. 

Downwards trends before the pandemic suggested that D.I.Y wasn’t going to be around forever. Although we have the ability to deliver groceries, food, and skip lines by paying online for things, we still have a lack of time. Something has to give.

When everyone found themselves working from home, out of a job, or with reduced schedules, time was freed. During 2020 a study done by the The Farnsworth Group-Home Improvement Research Institute, regarding Covid Home Improvement, 78% of homeowners responded they had started a do it yourself project within the previous two weeks of May 25th. 

It would appear that many people were starting to do their own projects instead of hiring a company to do it for them. This was a trend I could get behind. It’s not just about saving money, or making your house look good, it was about the “I did it!” factor of a completed project. (It’s easy to understand why trade workers point out their projects when they drive by.)

Influencers and trend setters were posting wonderful pictures about their weekend work and how they crafted beautiful decorations from dollar store items. Pinterest was blowing up with building your own decks and landscaping your yard. It seemed so perfect. Everything exactly how you imagined it, with a lower cost, and a can do attitude all wrapped up in a bow. 

We were 100% excited to break way on our home renovations. 

We were unpleasantly surprised.

D.I.Ys… suck. 

Behind every project a homeowner shows you is a story of untold frustration, a pile of mistakes, and tears shed over blisters. 

We started our renovations with a new roof. It seemed fitting as we are a roofing company, and it was the top of the house. We were at the top of our game. Completing the project between work and on the weekends, we soon had ourselves a new roof and a half empty dumpster. 

So we moved onto our basement. The one that hadn’t been touched since we bought the house four years ago. Both of us were way too creeped out to even open the door. The whole basement was cleared out, shop vac’d, and pressure washed. 

By the time the seventh 5 gallon bucket was emptied, I called a concrete company for a quote. 

I couldn’t do it anymore. 

Laundry unfolded. Dishes left uncleaned in the sink. A feeling of absolute guilt for choosing to do projects instead of spending time with my kids. 

With slow movements we finished the shelves in the basement, moved all of our storage down there, and freed up room in the house. It felt so good to be done. I was ready to paint the side of the house. Dig up some roots and plant flowers. The whole nine yards. 

Then it rained. 

Then our basement leaked. 

Then we realized… there will always be a problem that needs fixing. 

It could be the vehicles, the house, or the yard. The amount of problems that we would have to continuously fix over the years was part of being a product owner. There will always be something. 

This is why service based professions exist. They aren’t here to sell you products. They aren’t here to market the newest thing to you. They are here to sell you time. 

Time that they poured into better themselves and their skills to be able to give you time while providing for their family. 

            In the end, it doesn’t matter what you do. You can hire someone, or you can D.I.Y. (I know… another one of those misleading articles titles).

But, we found that regardless of the project, we always had comments. Someone saying “you could have done that so much cheaper” or even “it would have been better if you hired someone.” We could have created a portal through space and still “could have added a chair here to liven up the space.” 

Specialized services are what makes us different. The ability to choose if you want to hire or if you want to take the project on yourself. 

If you have the skill set to change the oil in your car, but don’t have the time/desire to redo your roof, call us!

If you paint your house, but want a basement cleaned out…. Please do not call us. 

Thanks for reading, 

Zam Roofing LLC