When is it time to call the professional? Written by Robert Kempe
For most Do-It-Yourself (DIY) home project managers, most difficult decision is to know when to give professionals a call to come complete a task and when to complete it yourself. The reason we like to do our own home upgrades or an addition is always a pretty internal and selfish reason. We want to save money and we want to be able to say, “I did it myself.” How many times have you been to a friendly dinner party and topic of home improvement projects come up? Ultimately, it becomes a barrage of sentences that all contain these simple statements, “I did it myself.” or “We did it ourselves.” I must confess that I am also guilty of this. This is why we always have more informative conversations with people at local hardware and supply stores. Both parties in conversation understand need to DIY and communication process flows without any issues. Have you ever had complications with a project and wished you had called someone instead of finishing it yourself? I have, here is an example: My wife informed me that dishwasher was broken, I answered her by saying, “Let me have a look at it before you call anyone, okay?” She would humor me and let me look at something I have no idea, other than basic theory of operation, how it works! I want to be hero in my mind, all knowing of my own kingdom. I don’t want to let someone else come into my own kingdom and fix something! However, eventually dishes would pile up waiting for washer to be fixed and I would be letting a few informal adjectives slip out of my mouth as I looked for tools, only because I didn’t know how to fix it, let alone, find problem. My wife, good woman that she is, would then politely call, after a period of pre-calculated time on her part, a repair man and schedule to have washer fixed. She would then inform me at a later time that day of future repair schedule for appliance. Timing is everything in that situation isn’t it? Now back to my original statement, “the most difficult decision is to know when to give professionals a call.” Well answer is simple, when we are over our head and out of our league in a project. The definition of previous sentence is a difficult trial in our own mind set along side our egos for DIY home project managers. My wife, in example, followed definition to that sentence and didn’t realize it. As you read rest of this article, place yourself in your own project and ask yourself questions in each of these steps. The first step is to remove your self from project and evaluate it from an outside prospective. This must be done. If you have trouble accomplishing this, ask yourself how your spouse or good friend would view this project. What is real objective? In example, my wife just wanted dishes to be washed in dishwasher. My objective was to fix dishwasher to be able to handle loads of dishes. The difference is that she had true objective, to wash dishes in dish washer. My objective was to fix appliance. So you see that removing yourself from project and evaluating situation, can help you define true objective. In addition, make sure that project will not void or compromise any existing warranties. Do you have a clear objective of project looking at it from an outside prospective?
| | Choosing and using storage boxes in the homeWritten by Chris Brand
Choosing and using storage boxes in homeStorage boxes come in a variety of sizes and materials. They come made in cardboard, plastic or metal which gives you great choice and flexibility in how you can use them. If you only have limited space in house for home storage then it pays to measure up cupboards before you spend money on boxes. It is surprising how much useful space you can end up with by not planning ahead to make most of space you have available. Corners of bedroom cupboards, full vertical dimensions of shelves in kitchens and any spare racking in garages can all be maximised with careful choice of storage boxes. Tips for finding extra space Measure shelves for dead space Rearrange cupboard contents Make most of unused garages and basements. Consider buying lightweight racking useable with storage boxes If you are using storage boxes for heavy objects then it is pretty obvious that you will need something strong, preferably metal or reinforced plastic. You don't want disaster of bottom of boxes bursting when you are moving stuff around. Compartments built into storage boxes are also handy. Like filing folders they allow you to arrange and organize your stuff in such a way as to make it a breeze to find things quickly and efficiently.
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