From Makeovers To Remodels (The Process Was Gradual)

One of the questions I get asked regularly is “how did you learn to do everything you do?” If you’ve been around here from the beginning, you know that I’m pretty much all self-taught. I never really had someone teach me how to remodel a house. I’m a very independent person, and I like to figure things out myself. I’ve been that way since I was a child. As I’ve shared before, my mom tells me that one of the first complete sentences I learned to say as a very young child was, “Me do it meself!” And that’s pretty much been my attitude all of my life. I want to do things myself. I want to problem solve myself. I want to think through processes and figure them out myself.

That doesn’t mean I never get outside help. Of course, I do, and I’ve had to do that several times as I’ve remodeled our house. Sometimes things are way too heavy for me to lift by myself, so I have to call in help. Sometimes a project is way too much for me to do myself (like building a carport or adding a huge support beam in the roof structure of the studio so that I can have a vaulted ceiling). Obviously, not everything can be a DIY project taken on by one person.

But in our house, I’ve done a lot of the structural stuff myself — moving doorways, adding openings in load-bearing walls, etc. And I’ve done a lot of the structural stuff myself with help — rebuilding the front and back walls of the breakfast room/pantry, installing new windows, etc. And I think when people see those things that I’ve done in more recent years, without the background of how this all started, they think I’ve just always been doing those things. But that’s definitely not the case. I started off small, teaching myself how to use basic tools like a miter saw and nail gun with an air compressor. I started off with basic projects that would fall more into the “redecorating” or “makeover” category years before I got to anything that could be considered “remodeling”.

And that really struck me lately as I’ve been trying to update older pictures on my blog. A couple of years ago, I dropped my hard drive that stored literally all of my photos and broke it. None of the pictures could be recovered. I was devastated, but at least I still had all of the pictures that are saved in old blog posts. So lately, I’ve been using ChatGPT to edit those old pictures since my photography was terrible back then and I used such small pictures. And I’ve been trying to get our condo pictures updated.

Here’s what our kitchen looked like when we sold the condo.

And here’s how that started out. Same cabinets, but I made some adjustments to the cabinet doors using some very basic tools. I also replaced the countertops and added a tile backsplash. I added peel-and-stick tile to the floor. But it was mostly paint that made the difference.

That gave me the confidence to do a little more building once I got the breakfast room where I built a banquette seat. But I used stock kitchen cabinets from Home Depot for some of it. Everything else here was just paint and trim.

Here’s how that area looked when we bought the condo.

In the living room, I used more stock cabinets and then built a countertop and shelves above. But then there was more paint and trim. Those basic things go a long way in transforming a room without needing to “remodel” anything. (I’m still sad that I never did get to completely finish this room before we sold the condo.)

And this is basically the story of our whole condo. There wasn’t any “remodeling” that went into this condo. In the hallway, I removed some bifold doors and added a curtain to the laundry closet.

On the other side, I removed bifold doors and added more stock cabinets. The rest was just paint, color, and pattern.

In the bathroom, the original vanity stayed, but I made new doors and drawer fronts. They weren’t fancy, but I built upon the skills I had learned from doing the makeover on the kitchen cabinet doors. The rest was paint, trim, and decorative items.

Here’s what that bathroom looked like when we bought the condo. You can see that nothing major really changed in here.

In the bedroom, I used my previous (limited) building skills to build two closets on either side of the bed. But the rest was more paint and decorative items.

In the other bedroom, the biggest project I did was make a headboard out of fence pickets. That required the use of a jigsaw to cut out the shape, so with small projects like that, I was able to add another tool and another skill to my skillset.

And in the attached bathroom, I did a very basic makeover and made new doors and drawer fronts for the original vanity. I also made a new mirror. That required a miter saw, a nail gun, and a jigsaw. So you can see how each new tool and each new skill made new, creative projects possible. And with each new tool and each new skill, my projects kept getting bigger and more complex over the years.

All of that to say that everything I’ve done in our house over the last 13 years was built upon the very basic skills I learned in this condo (and the projects I did before we moved into the condo). Those basic skills added up, and as I gained confidence, I was ready to tackle harder and more challenging projects.

So any time someone asks me how I learned to do what I do, I encourage them to start small. Buy some basic tools — a miter saw, nail gun, and circular saw or small table saw, and start there. Do some basic projects. Add some new trim around a door or window. Add wainscoting to a wall. Find an area in your home where you’d like more storage and add some stock cabinets, and then use the tools you have to add trim and customize those cabinets. Those skills will start to add up and build upon each other.

And before you know it, you might feel comfortable taking on some remodeling projects. But it all starts with the basics. I was really fascinated to look back on our condo and see that the transformation of that little condo really was filled with nothing but very basic DIY projects that I did with just a handful of very basic tools, but they added up to make a huge difference in how that condo looked from the “before” to the “after”.