Summer is the perfect time to upgrade your home. You finally get a break from work, and the four walls you’ve spent so much time staring at this year (thanks Covid!) are begging for an upgrade.
But with an avalanche of DIY advice hitting us every summer, it’s also worth considering what not to do.
Some bright ideas are just not worth the hassle, time, and money.
1. Trying to find the cheapest of everything.
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Now, you know me. I love a good bargain.
But that doesn’t mean always going for the cheapest. Sometimes the cheapest option can actually cost you more over the long-term.
In the same way that fast fashion can become unusable after just one wear, some cheap homewares just aren’t worth it.
Anything in a high-traffic area should be as good quality as you can manage, so that it can withstand the repeated use.
Don’t expect a cheap couch to lift the vibe in your home. Photo / Getty Images
So, while a cheap lamp from Kmart will probably look lovely and do just fine, rugs, couches, a mattress, or a high-use appliance, will probably need to be decent quality so that they can last longer.
This doesn’t have to mean spending a lot. Keep an eye out for sales on long weekends, or second-hand bargains going for a fraction of their original price.
2. Home renovations that need a professional.
I love a good DIY moment. I’ve painted rooms, plastered walls, and installed insulation and vapour barriers.
But there are times when you need to bring in a professional rather than risk causing extensive damage that’s worse than the original problem, or even injuring yourself.
It might cost more than you were originally hoping to spend, but there are some jobs that you either need to do well or not at all.
Tiling can get very messy very quickly when you don’t know what you are doing. Photo / Getty Images
Plumbing changes, anything electrical, roof maintenance, structural changes, or tiling in wet areas like a shower, can all go horribly wrong if you don’t have the skills.
You might think you got away with it at first, like the many people who put in DIY tiled showers, only to find out that because they didn’t put in the proper waterproof lining they’d been slowly rotting away their home for years.
3. Home changes for the “ideal you”, not the real you.
Who didn’t watch Marie Kondo and think, “wow, maybe I could turn my kitchen a haven of organisation”?
These days, home-organisation pages are springing up across social media, offering pristine white photos of domestic bliss, all properly labelled and merchandised.
Marie Kondo has made home organization all the rage but is it for you? Photo / Getty Images
This, too, could be yours, for just a few hundred bucks of mason jars and shelving systems.
The problem is, outside of the glossy books and well-lit TV shows, many of the organisation systems actually take a lot of maintenance. If your house is a whirlwind of kids and after-school drop offs, it just might not work for you.
If you have a genuine pain point, go for it, but often the simplest solutions are the best ones. If you’re finding it difficult to keep your home organised, sometimes a good clear out and declutter is better than any Instagram organisational system.
- Frances Cook is the host of the personal finance podcast Cooking the Books. She is not a financial adviser, and all information is general in nature. For individual advice, see a financial adviser.
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