DIY Reality - 101

So you've decide to do something yourself that's outside your experience, and probably your expertise. You may be great at it or you could fail miserably. You take that risk. In business, the practice of reducing risk is called 'mitigation'. You can mitigate your risk of failure. You can make the choice to prepare, practice and follow through.

DIGRESSION #1:  A man I know was famous in his family as a great painter of rooms. When he painted my hall, the walls looked good. But he had shuffled over the drop cloths and left footprints on the floor, splattered everywhere, slopped on woodwork and doors, left brushes to dry out and left the lids loose on the paint cans. There were holes in the walls, rough spots, flakes of old paint. He had done nothing to prepare the walls, keep the area clean or wipe up his spills. It took me days to clean it all up. When he offered to 'help' again, we politely declined. He had put paint on the walls...he was not a 'painter'. He had done none of the things that make the task of painting a room successful.

DIGRESSION #2:  We watched hours of DIY shows on TV, where they slapped some mud and tape on the drywall, sanded a bit, and ended up with a beautiful smooth wall. We decided to give it a try, to put drywall over some old paneling in the dining room. We messed with mud, tape, mesh. We sanded until the house was covered in fine white dust. We added more mud, bought better tools, tried sanding with sponges...everything we could watch or read to help us do a better job. We failed. It takes years of practice to wield the tools of a professional sheetrock hanger, far more than the 20 minutes they would have you think from the TV shows. Next time, we'll hire one of those pros.

The reality of what you really MUST do:

Prepare:  Search online for examples, instructions, how-to guides, pictures. Look for lots of pictures and lots of WORDS. Instructions that say 'paint the chair by putting paint on the chair' are bogus. Instructions that say 'Open the can of paint on a mat made of 20 sheets of newspaper, stir carefully and slowly with a pair of chopsticks. Dip your brush no more than 1/4 of the way into the paint to keep paint out of the handle.' ... THOSE are the instructions you want to read! Look for books on your subject...if you can't buy new ones, look for used copies, or see if your library has a copy to lend (ALWAYS return library books!!!!) Compare instructions to find common steps and write down those steps for yourself. If someone offers a 'professional' tip, write that down too. By reading the instructions, writing out your own steps, and reading over your notes many times, you learn the basic steps for the task, and reduce the risk of skipping something or getting steps out of order.

Practice:  Some things you can't do over and over...some things you can. Some things you can rework to correct mistakes. Some tasks you only get one chance. Decide before you start what will happen if you mess up on any step. In business, they introduce 'controls' to reduce the risks for any step in a process. Figure out what your controls will be for each step. Be patient. Be careful. Think.

• If you need to try out a recipe before a party, do it a month ahead of time, not the day before. Try it several times to make sure you know exactly how it will taste. Buy fresh ingredients every time. Don't substitute or change measurements without a test.
• If you want to learn to crochet, knit or sew, be prepared to pull out everything and start over if it doesn't look right. Check your work frequently, and if you find a flaw, pull out everything back to that spot. If you want to make a jacket out of expensive wool fabric, make the jacket out of cheaper fabric, or make just the tricky parts (collar, pockets, sleeves) out of the cheaper fabric, to practice reading and following the instructions.
• For a job that can only be done once, take a cue from professional athletes: read your notes, visualize your actions. Hold the tools you will use. Mimic the motions in the pictures and videos. Practice on a small piece of material to get the feel and sound of the tools. Go through the actions in your mind, with the most successful outcome every time (of course!)

Follow through:  Clean up your work area before you start. Clean up as you go along. Do not stop until everything is as clean as it can be every day. Look around when you think you're finished. Everything should be exactly as it was (after you cleaned up the first time), except for the results of your effort. If you paint a room, there should be no paint anywhere in the room except on the walls. The furniture should be where it belongs, the paintbrushes cleaned and dried, the empty paint cans dried out and disposed of properly. If you cook a meal, craft something, repair something...the area where you worked should be left better than when you started.

A last thought on DIY:  when a child tries to 'do it myself', whatever they do is good enough -- even wonderful -- simply because they tried. Children learn by trying and failing. So do adults. But for an adult, the process of learning how to 'do it myself' does not end with the first try, or the first imperfect product. You know better. You know you should 'do better'. You need to visualize the end result, and strive to achieve that result, that completeness, even the result a professional might produce. Along the way, you learn what it takes to do any job correctly. As with our drywall experience, you learn to respect the skill and craftsmanship it takes to do any job, even if you never do it again.