DIY Your Way to a Dream Home: 10 Secrets Revealed

 

 Welcome to the thrilling world of  "Mad About Interior are you looking for all the ways you can create your dream home? I’m sharing 10 secrets right here and I think you’ll be surprised you!

 If you've ever dreamed of turning your living space into a haven that screams "you," you're in for a treat. This blog is not your typical home improvement guide – it's your passport to a journey of creativity, resourcefulness, and the occasional misadventure (because what's a good DIY story without a few hiccups, right?).

Starting the process of building your ideal house is similar to embarking on a fantastic journey. Your place will be transformed into something wholly your own during this exciting, unexpected, and sometimes "oops" trip. As we reveal the techniques that will transform your modest home into a manifestation of your most imaginative dreams, fasten your seatbelts.

We're not talking about just slapping a fresh coat of paint on the walls here – we're delving deep into the realms of personalization, budget-friendly brilliance, and the kind of home improvement hacks that make you feel like a wizard with a power drill. So, grab your toolkit, muster your DIY spirit, and let's embark on a mission to make your living space not just a house but a canvas where your dreams come to life. Get ready to roll up your sleeves, laugh off the inevitable hiccups, and discover the 10 secrets that will unlock the door to your dream home. Let the adventure begin!

So here are the 10 secrets that you may already know, but you might also find a great hidden gem here!

Gather Lots of Inspiration

Whether you’re stalking an account on Instagram or you’re filling up Pinterest boards, be sure to gather lots of inspiration for any project you’re ready to take on.

I have a great post on how you can use Pinterest to help you narrow down ideas HERE.

If you’re using Pinterest be sure to use the area where you can add notes to say why you loved the image in the first place. Then as you spend time adding inspiration you might keep it or remove it.

The goal isn’t to make your space look exactly like the picture, it’s to use all the inspiration you gather to add your own flair and style to your spaces.

It can also be helpful to share your ideas if you have a photo with a similar idea or shape or color in it. I’m much better at showing a photo to my husband, or even a rough sketch than I am at flailing my hands around describing things.

He also knows that I’m visual, so sometimes we have to actually put down a piece of tape or mock up some cardboard so I can see how things will actually size up or feel in our space.

Be sure to follow me on Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest for more inspiration!

Remember the Big Picture

We all have an idea of what “dream home” means to us.

Each of our ideas is unique and our own.

My dream home is completely different from your dream home. The idea of a dream home will change according to the stage of life you’re in as well.

It helps to put a name to what you’re wanting to achieve in your “dream home” and many times that starts with a feeling.

Do you want your home to feel warm and cozy, clean and minimalist, bright and colorful?

Spend time learning what your “dream home” priorities really are and you’ll get much closer to achieving them with each DIY you complete.

Adding color and personality to a space will make it feel like your space.

If you’re craving more space, clever storage an help you feel like you’ve added on.

Love the Home You’re In Right Now

Unless you’ve bought a fixer upper that you’re not currently living in, remember to actually live in your home.

Just because the spot you’re in isn’t your dream home right now, you’re still creating memory’s, you’re still creating a life in it.

Don’t put everything on hold while you’re in the process.

Of course you probably don’t want to schedule a dinner party while you are working on a kitchen renovation, but you can still have a pizza party. You might even be able to convince your friends to pick up a hammer or a paintbrush when you share your plans (and pizza) with them!

Enjoy the Journey

Making a house into a home is a process. Especially if you’re going the DIY route.

Each and every project. Each brush of color changes how your home looks and feels. And it changes how you feel about it.

DIY can be time consuming, it can sometimes be frustrating and it can definitely push you to your limits.

It can also give you confidence, help you think outside the box, and lets you come up with creative ways to solve issues that you have in your spaces.

Be sure that you’re taking time to enjoy all the parts of it.

Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Your dream home will take time to achieve as well. #hometakestime

Respect the Season You’re In

I have learned that I can really admire a style without actually wanting that style in my own home.

I love a clean and simple white room with bold pops of color. White sofas, big fluffy rugs and hardwood floors.

I also love our swimming pool that is just steps from our back door and makes our tile more practical than wood. I love our 2 giant dogs who have giant muddy paws and aren’t afraid to put them on the furniture.

I especially love my grandkids. They sometimes dig in the potting soil if I’m not paying attention and they almost always have sticky fingers.

So while I admire thick rugs and white sofa’s I know that my dream home has dogs and baby’s in it.

That makes giant fluffy rugs and white sofa’s not great choices for our home. I still have white sofa’s, they are slipcovered and they usually have another cover over their seats to keep them clean. I love them but they definitely require maintenance.

My dream home idea has definitely changed as I’ve gotten older and as my family has grown.

Yours likely will as well.

Know Your Limits

There are so many projects that you’ll be able to DIY all on your own.

There are also projects that will require a professional.

Sometimes you’re going to need some help, whether it’s advice or help moving a giant ladder.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help when actually need it.

If it’s a job that has special expertise to it then hire someone or take a class. Or spend some time on You Tube watching all the tutorials you can find.

If it’s a trade that requires a license like electrical, plumbing or HVAC then you should definitely consider hiring someone. Along with making structural changes to a house.

While you can easily switch out a sink, completely renovating a bathroom might need a tradesman.

We all have limitations in time and interest and it’s okay to DIY what you want or are capable of and hire out different jobs or even parts of one job.

My husband, who is gifted at many trades, points out that you may spend more time and money repairing a job that isn’t done correctly than you would hiring someone in the first place.

We have started hiring out our bigger tiling jobs now because we’ve decided it’s just something we don’t necessarily enjoy anymore. The constant up and down and squeezing into tiny spots takes the joy out of the DIY but hiring Luis to lay the tile gets my project done quicker and without breaking my back!

So I DIY the design of the project and provide the materials and he brings a crew in to lay tile. Win win.

Set a Budget

Everyone hates the word budget but we all have one. It can be a big one or a small one but it’s always a consideration so make sure you know what your budget is.

It can be a budget for a certain project or a whole house budget for furniture.

We set a budget for each DIY project we start in our home. When we moved we had a total home budget for furniture since we were purchasing almost an entire houseful.

My budgets are generally more of a guideline these days. We’ve been DIY’ing for almost 30 years now so we can both know enough about what’s involved in a project and our comfort level with it.

There’s always a “slush” fund to a project because it will invariable go over budget somewhere along the line. Maybe not when you’re painting a hallway, but bigger projects can easily snowball into budget busters.

Remember that your dream home will become a nightmare if you can’t afford it.

And also remember that the last $100 you spend on a project is just as important as the first $100. Be careful not to get too thrifty at the end because you blew your budget at the beginning.

If you have to save up to finish up, do it. It’ll definitely be worth the wait.

Be Realistic About Your Timeline

Let me just say that I’ve been DIY’ing for over 30 years and I have never, ever completed a project as fast as I wanted too.

I am always optimistic that “this won’t take long” and my husband just rolls his eyes and gets out of the way.

So while I may not be realistic about an actual timeline, I am realistic about what we can live with in the meantime.

We lived in a half finished kitchen for 2 years while we worked on sections of it. We had exposed plumbing for 2 Thanksgivings but the kitchen was functioning the entire time.

We had exposed wiring and plumbing in this kitchen for 2 years!  It took longer to DIY this dream home than we had planned.

MySimpaticoLife.com

A portion of DIY'ing a dream home - You can see the back of the dishwasher and exposed wiring - it stayed this way for 2 years.

MySimpaticoLife.com

It took so much longer than either of us had planned for, but it was amazing when it was finished and totally worth the wait.

Looking back I might have planned some things differently but we made entertaining and family a priority during the project. That means we didn’t spend every spare minute working on the kitchen, but we were still using it during the entire project.

Stick to One Project at a Time

I’m so guilty of starting different projects all over the house but I do have a few limits in place.

Guest rooms or guest bathrooms can have projects happening at the same time because we don’t use them everyday.

The main part of our house has a strict start and finish rule (which is partly what’s keeping me from starting some of the projects in this area).

That doesn’t mean that I have to start a room and finish it before I move on, but it does mean that I can’t have a huge ladder in our dining room for weeks on end.

Each portion of a project has to be completed so that we can live in our house and not constantly be living in a construction zone.

Each project has to reach some level of completion before moving on to the next one.

You might not learn what your level of tolerance is until you’ve complete a few projects but if the project itself is stressing you out, figure out what part you can complete to make it less stressful.

Maybe all you need is to throw a blanket over your tools so that you don’t have to look at them. Maybe you just need to shut the door for a few days and ignore it.

Which brings me to the last thing.

Give Yourself Grace

DIY is a process. It’s a learning process and it can also involve some experimenting.

Be sure to give yourself grace.

No one is a painter until they start painting.

No one is a tiler until they start tiling.

Experience makes projects go quicker and easier but the only way you’ll gain experience is by actually trying out different projects.

No home is perfect.

It’s rare to see a perfect paint job, tile job, etc. in any home. Even in a brand new home. The thing is, you might not be able to see these flaws until you live in a space for awhile.

When you DIY you’ll notice each spot that you don’t feel is perfect. The one grout line in the job that’s a tiny bit wider than the rest or that piece of trim that has extra caulk in it to fill a wider gap.

Guess what?

You’re likely the only one that notices!

So give yourself grace in the process. Know that you will make mistakes and chalk them up as learning experiences.

Do it anyway!

You can DIY your dream home!

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