Every home improvement project* I’ve ever done begins with a moment of frustration.
- I slammed the gate for the hundredth time to get it to latch.
- I unplugged my phone charger and noticed the wall socket was loose (as it’s been for 5 years).
- I was outside measuring my door when I saw the light fixture above had turned completely to rust.
- The lumber stacked on a shelf in my garage was jammed into a messy pile that fell over anytime I tried to remove a board.
- After 4 years of looking at the ugly colors in my bathrooms, I decided they should be painted a color I actually liked.
- Replaced the squeaky hinges on my front door that greasing never seemed to help because they had been painted over too many times.
Suddenly, after saying to myself “This is bullshit!”, it occurs to me that there’s gotta be a better way.
There almost always is.
Sometimes I can think about the problem for a while and come up with a better solution. Other times, I turn to the internet to see what others recommend (Reddit, YouTube and specialty forums can be quite helpful). Occasionally, if the above two approaches don’t yield a definitive answer, I’ll call the Craigs (my two good friends who are both expert handymen and DIYers )for advice.
Once I put my mind to it, I usually can identify a better solution and then it becomes my project du jour.
Often, I wish I would have recognized something was inefficient, poorly designed or suboptimal and fixed it right away. When I fix it I think, “I wish I had done this 5 years ago.”
The best I can do in those situations is to try not to repeat the same mistake the next time.
And also, of course, to appreciate the improvement, which usually is surprisingly easy because most of my improvement projects address things I use everyday.
*It’s my primary motivator for most self-improvement projects too.