Despite potential pitfalls, more gung-ho homeowners than ever are taking on do-it-yourself renovations and remodels.

By Denise Trowbridge, New Orleans CityLife, April 2005

Daniel Martin’s desk is covered in sawdust, littered with cans of Kilz primer and surrounded by buckets of Proform joint compound. Twenty anxious people sit on metal folding chairs arranged in a semicircle around him, hanging on his every word. “You can pay a plumber $55 to change it or you can do it yourself for a dollar,” Martin says. He’s talking about replacing the wax ring on the bottom of a toilet, and he’s going to show them how.

It’s a typical night in Martin’s Home Repair Series I class at Delgado Community College, where students spend three hours every Monday learning to be handy around the house. They hang and tape sheet rock, rewire outlets, fidget with toilet tanks and reglaze windows.

It’s Delgado’s most popular noncredit continuing education course, filling up within two days of registration and carrying a waiting list of 20 or more. “People take the class because they are tired of getting ripped off by contractors,” says Martin. Harsh words, considering he’s been a contractor for 40 years. “There’s a lot of interest in learning how to do repairs.”

He’s right. The do-it-yourself craze has blossomed. Inspired by a slate of home improvement television shows, low interest rates on home equity loans and the potential to save a lot of money, people are more willing than ever to do remodeling projects themselves. According to a 2004 Vertis Customer Focus survey, 47 percent of adults polled said they either planned to or had already completed do-it-yourself home improvement work, up from 38 percent in 2000.

These handy homeowners spent a whopping $37.1 billion on do-it-yourself remodeling projects in 2003, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

Martin’s class isn’t the only one in demand. On weekends, free how-to seminars at New Orleans area Lowe’s and Home Depot stores are filled to the brim. “Usually we have no less than 10 people in each class,” says Chris Roane, general manager of the Home Depot in Gretna. “On the weekends, we can have as many as 30.

“Do-it-yourself projects are gaining popularity because they’re a cost-effective way to personalize your home and increase your property value at the same time,” he says.

With a lukewarm economic recovery and a tight job market stretching homeowners’ wallets thin, saving money is a big motivator. In New Orleans, hiring a professional to do a simple, midrange remodel can cost about $13,000 for a kitchen and $8,000 for a bathroom, according to Remodeling Magazine’s Cost vs. Value Report. “It usually costs about half that to do it yourself,” says interior designer Nancy Bounds.

Bounds and her husband, Terry, saved $3,000 by doing their master bedroom renovation themselves. They tore out sheet rock, replaced the electrical wiring, installed new light fixtures and removed a small set of doors leading to an attic storage space. They gave the room a fresh coat of paint and replaced all of the woodwork and molding. Total cost? $2,000. “It would have cost us at least $5,000 if we had hired someone,” she says.

Lenny Bazile and his wife, Becky, saved close to $15,000. The couple remodeled their home’s kitchen, installing new floors, baseboards and lighting. They extended a wall, turning a tiny pantry into a space large enough for a washer and dryer. Bazile also built a new garage from scratch. “My neighbor has a garage exactly like mine and his cost $11,000,” he says. “I saved $6,000 by building mine myself.”

Neither couple had extensive construction experience, but that didn’t stop them. “I’m not scared. Houses are like erector sets,” Bounds says. “You live and learn.”

However, both couples knew their limits. Bounds had a licensed electrician inspect their do-it-yourself wiring job before they hung the sheet rock. “People don’t know what they don’t know,” she says, so just to be safe, she double-checked with a pro to make sure the project was on par with building codes.

Bazile hired a contractor to install his kitchen cabinets and countertops. “I didn’t want to learn the hard way that cabinets have to be perfectly level,” he says. “At the time, I didn’t have the skills to do it myself.”

Hiring a professional to do the parts of a renovation or remodeling job that are out of your reach is a good idea, says contractor Dennis Maggio, chairman of the Home Builders Association of Greater New Orleans Remodeler’s Council. “When in doubt, split part of the work with a pro,” he says. “If the project involves structural work, or plumbing and electricity, you’ll get the most for your money by hiring a professional.”

If you aren’t great with electricity, for example, have an electrician do the wiring while you hang the electrical boxes. Or, hire a contractor to replace a rotted subfloor and you can install the tile.

Cosmetic projects such as tiling and painting or installing laminate flooring and baseboards are well within reach of do-it-yourselfers, Maggio says, but letting a professional handle the big stuff can save a lot of headaches. Oftentimes, “it may look like you did a good job at first, but later on you might end up with big problems, such as moisture and mold,” he says.

Maggio isn’t trying to shoo potential do-it-yourselfers away from all projects, just the potentially disastrous ones. He worries that home improvement TV shows have made major repairs appear easier than they are, lulling novice do-it-yourselfers into a false sense of security and fostering unrealistic expectations. What it boils down to is this: “If you have no construction experience, good intentions are not going to get your through,” he says.

He and his colleagues have come to the rescue of many do-it-yourselfers who have gotten in over their heads. Some thought the project would be easier than it actually was, others “decided to do it themselves because they didn’t know where to find good help. They had been burned by a fly-by-night contractor before and didn’t want to repeat that mistake,” Maggio says.

Bazile discovered first hand how complicated projects can become when he tried to pour a concrete driveway on his own. “I borrowed a Bobcat from my neighbor’s father-in-law so I could spread the sand and set the forms for the concrete,” he says. “I would get 30 feet leveled then it would rain and all of the sand would end up in a pile at the foot of the driveway. It went on like that for a month and a half.”

Frustrated, the Baziles went on a weekend vacation. When they came back, they found a new, finished concrete driveway. The neighbor had rounded up his family and finished it for them while they were away. Bazile admits it would have been next to impossible to do on his own. “It was my ego,” he admits. “I wanted to do it myself.”

All projects — large and small — have pitfalls, says Bounds, whether you do it yourself or hire it out. “The dust is always horrible, and you have to have a plan B for living life,” she says. “It really ups your stress level, especially for couples.”

“Doing it yourself takes patience,” Bazile says. “When you hire someone, all of the mistakes are their problem. When you mess up, it’s your problem. And when you mess up, it costs you money.”

Realistically evaluating your ability to do the project, as well as the time and energy you can dedicate to it is a must, says Bounds, who has renovated her last two homes. “You need to be a workaholic,” she adds, “because you go to work all day, then have to come home and work on your house all night.”

Keep unrealistic expectations in check, too. “It looks easy on TV, but it never is that easy,” Bounds adds. “There are a lot of construction gremlins out there. Something will always turn out to be problematic. The project will always take longer than you thought it would.”

Still, the pride of going it alone and the lure of money saved can be too good to pass up. “Doing it yourself will definitely save you money,” Bounds says, “unless you screw up.”