There’s pride in knowing you can take ownership of being able to maintain and improve your own home. The skills, knowledge, and experience that come with performing DIY home projects can make you feel confident about how reliable you are to your family and how crafty and creative you can be to keep up with life’s changing trends. Building yourself up to be a home improvement king will have plenty of other benefits, such as saving money on professional services and home repairs. When practiced to a professional level, you can even earn money by using your skills for side hustles.
However, the path to becoming a home improvement king is long and challenging. You will have to practice and master everything you want to learn to pull it off. Fortunately, you can break down your journey into essential steps, starting with your home. Here are a few things you need to do to take the crown as a home improvement king.
Start with a Plan
Everything about becoming a home improvement king starts with a plan. You have your own home as your canvas, allowing you to experiment with whatever projects you want to help you achieve your goal. However, you must be strategic with your home improvement effort. Making changes with your home can be expensive, especially when you have to procure the materials and purchase the power tools yourself. If you find it challenging to start yourself, you can consult a remodeling contractor first.
A remodeling contractor can help you identify what home improvement projects you can start with, given that your skills and materials are not yet up to par. The expert knows which are beginner-friendly, allowing you to slowly build up your knowledge to the more challenging ones. A contractor will also help you strategize your home improvement projects, ensuring that what you are working on will eventually be fruitful for your family’s comfort and convenience. As you master your home improvement skills, your household will get the better for it. Everything about home improvement projects starts with a plan, and doing so with professional assistance can make your journey faster and better.
Invest in Quality Tools
On your journey to becoming the home improvement king, you will have to invest in tools that can help you ascend the throne. Home improvement requires a lot of manual labor, and even the most skilled professionals invest heavily in different types of tools to accomplish their services. If you want to be the home improvement king, you’ll have to fill your workshed with the best tools possible, including:
- Different types of hammers
- Screwdriver sets
- Drills and drill bits
- Wrenches and pliers
- Tape measures and beam levels
- Power saws
- Sanders
- Paint tools
- Flashlights
Those tools are essential to secure, but you might have to invest more if you want to take on more complicated tasks. Air conditioning repair, in particular, will require refrigerant scales, gauges, and even leak detectors to accomplish the project fully. However, the tools listed above are the basic necessities for home maintenance and repairs. Still, they might not be enough if you have to take down walls or build new ones. The materials you will utilize to accomplish those improvements will also require investment, adding to the tally of tools you need for home renovations. It will take time to build the inventory you need to be the home improvement king, but you can slowly complete everything you need for renovations you want to accomplish.
Learn New Skills
Of course, your route to becoming the home improvement king will require you to pick up new skills. The basics are easy to learn, with home maintenance and repairs being the first you should have in the books. Having experience and skills in those projects means you can convert them when you start doing renovations. Here are a few skills to learn:
- Painting
- Plumbing
- Carpentry
- Electrical work
- Masonry
- Interior designing
- Flooring
- Drywalling
- Landscaping
Learning new skills, however, might require you to seek guidance from professionals. For example, roofing can be complex because of the hazards of going up the roof with different materials, safety gear, and construction tools. Roofing contractors can help you get started with basic repair tasks before eventually building up to improvements and upgrades. You can learn different skills from other professionals like kitchen remodelers, bathroom experts, or general home contractors. Observing and taking down notes can help you acquire their abilities and eventually, put it in your own skillset.
Keep Your Home Clean and Clutter-Free
Before you get started on home improvements, you might have to ensure you prepare your home for the projects you will perform. Home projects can get messy with all the dust, debris, and materials you have to use during the process. Everything will be cluttered around the areas you plan on repairing or renovating, so ensuring that your home is prepared for it will be key to practicing your skills.
Maintaining cleanliness will start with household chores like sweeping the floors and organizing items. You can dedicate storage solutions to ensure things like clothes, paperwork, and toys do not get lost or ruined during a renovation project. However, some cleaning tasks might force you to seek professional help. Deep cleaning areas like the chimney will require specialized equipment and expertise, making it necessary to hire a chimney cleaner. The expert can reach difficult areas and perform cleaning tasks to ensure it is ready for renovation. Walls and floors might also require cleaning before you replace or demolish them, ensuring you perform home improvement tasks without worries.
Prioritize Safety
If there is any step that can make you fumble on the path to becoming the home improvement king, it would be safety hazards. So many have failed to accomplish their goals on DIY projects because of this obstacle, and for good reason. People will have to take the risk when performing steps like electrical work, wall demolitions, roof repairs, and other potentially hazardous tasks. If you want to be great at home improvements, you must never skip safety.
Your efforts to learn how to deal with safety hazards start with watching professionals at work. They have the safety gear needed to accomplish their specialized services, allowing you to replicate their outfit and practices when it is your turn to do them. Local electricians often invest in safety tools and inspection devices to ensure they do not get electrocuted or shocked while working on electrical wires. They can help you complete your first projects, from simple repairs to circuit changes. Roofers can also assist you when transporting materials to the roof, which is often at a great height for most homes. Prioritizing safety will be vital when performing home improvements, making it necessary to incorporate safety practices in every step you take for the journey.
Start Small
If you want to be the home improvement king, you might want to take on significant projects immediately. However, nobody becomes successful overnight, which should be your approach because shortcuts can lead to mistakes and safety hazards. Before you can become a home improvement expert, you must start with small projects and build from there.
The basic home improvement projects include building small furniture, replacing tiles, and painting walls. Those tasks are easy or convenient enough to grant you a starting point for home improvement. Then, you can move on to bigger projects like installing new features and replacing bathroom fixtures. Those might require you to be error-proof, but they are easy enough to understand because you are working with finished components. Once you have confidence in yourself, you can take on projects that usually get handled by the home pros. Of course, those projects might require more than two people, with mold service being part of basement renovations or drywall replacements. Having that extra hand ensures you can learn from them and accomplish those significant projects yourself the next time around. You cannot conquer the big projects instantly. If you want to take them on, starting small can get you there.
Focus on Energy Efficiency
Becoming the home improvement king does not end with learning how to do DIY projects. Upgrading the home means covering more than just functionality and aesthetics. If you really want to call your home improvements successful, then it must be strategically efficient in terms of energy usage. Unfortunately, most home improvements end up costing more money because they fail to utilize energy-efficient upgrades, leading to higher utility bills. So, if you want your renovations to be successful, energy efficiency should be prioritized.
In bathroom renovations, bathroom remodelers often prioritize water-saving fixtures such as low-flow toilets. The investment can save water, preventing high utility bills. Moreover, investing in energy-efficient lighting solutions like LED bulbs can significantly reduce electrical usage. DIY bathroom projects might focus more on tile replacements and fixture upgrades, but considering these energy-efficient solutions can ensure you cover all the aspects that make it successful.
Pay Attention to Detail
Home improvement must always be satisfying in terms of aesthetics. If you do not like how your project looks after completion, then it might not be a successful one. Aesthetics will always be a factor, which is why most home improvement projects often have inspiration from modern trends. Paying attention to detail will ensure you are satisfied with your home improvement efforts. There is no better area to start working on details than your home’s front lawn. Since it is a major contributor to curb appeal, your front lawn’s aesthetics should be in great shape.
Of course, proper gardening efforts should be a no-brainer for home improvement efforts on the front lawn. Well-kept grass, plants, and trees should be part of the overall aesthetics. Partnering with rock suppliers will also be crucial in ensuring you have the design elements ready when building pathways and well-structured plant placements. Outdoor amenities must also be built strategically, ensuring they are cohesive with the landscaping design for a good blend of greenery and modernity. Paying attention to detail will be critical in saving money and ensuring you feel satisfied with your home improvements, making it essential to practice whenever you can.
Stay Organized
Becoming good at home improvement will require you to invest in a lot of tools and materials. Because of the messy nature of home improvements, you might have to take them all outside. Unfortunately, scattering them around can be potentially hazardous. You might step on sharp and fragile materials unknowingly, leading to injuries or property damage. Moreover, it can be challenging to find a specific tool when you need it. If you do not have a fence or a workshed, you might find that you are missing a few tools because other people might steal them. Taking care of your tools is essential as a DIY homeowner, and it starts with staying organized.
Keeping your tools and items organized will start with sorting them out in storage solutions. Consider building a workshed to keep them safe. You can also add a lock to ensure nobody can access it. Preventing outsiders from entering your premises will also be essential to tool protection, making it necessary to contact local fence companies to build the obstacle. Since you are working on your home improvement skills, you can also build your own.
Seek Inspiration
Home improvement can be fun to perform, but it requires creative eyes. Even the best home remodeling experts seek inspiration to improve their services. If they are doing it, so should the home improvement king. If you are starting a project, you can look at the best designs online by searching for those specific improvements. You can start small, with furniture building being the best option. Glass table tops are good starters since you can invest in materials relatively inexpensive and use carpentry skills while making room for mistakes. Eventually, you can move on to bigger projects like expanding rooms and redesigning the interior, all of which will have modern photos for inspiration.
Becoming a home improvement king is no easy journey, but you can achieve it. Starting with these steps is the ideal path, and you can improve as you progress. Eventually, you might have enough experience and skills to call yourself a home improvement expert.
