I’m guessing if you’ve stumbled onto this post, then you’re probably wishing you had the courage to DIY. You see Pinterest and Instagram full of people getting it done and doing things around their homes by themselves. They’re building beautiful things and you want to join in, but you don’t know how to DIY.
Well, here’s where I come in. I want to instill the confidence in you, friend. Because I promise you. You can do this.
You can DIY whatever you want. Transform items and spaces in your home to beautiful creations that speak to you and your style. But most importantly, make you feel like you’re home.
How I got Started with DIYs
Why should you listen to me? Let’s start with my background and how I got started DIYing.
Growing up, I did crafts with my mom all the time. I’d decorate my room with whatever I had or could afford.
When I was barely 23, I purchased a home by myself. On a grocery store clerk salary. So, you could say I ran a tight budget. I now had a home I needed to fill with furniture and decor and no money to do it.
So, I started DIYing. I was a thrifty shopper and found things as inexpensively as I could. Blessing were brought to my doorstep in forms of old furniture people were giving away. I gladly took whatever was given to me and tried my best to make it work.
Between flipping furniture and making most of my decor, my 23-year old self had a cute home to be proud of. Was it perfect? Absolutely not. Did it look like a magazine-worthy home? Well, no one was knocking on my door asking to take pictures, but I sure was.
When my husband and I got married, we moved into another home and I now had to make the same items work in a different home. It’s funny how different things can look in a different space.
Inspired by so many other DIYers, I started to get braver with DIYs and take on new challenges. I picked up tools I swore I would never touch and faced my fears and insecurities head on. Like making this accent cabinet door.
Let me tell you. Overcoming some of the challenges I’ve faced with simple DIYs have been so rewarding in my life.
It may seem simple, but I never realized the amount of confidence I could receive in myself simply by building something from scratch or even restoring something old.
Our home is filled with DIY flips and homemade items. Each room complete with items that are a reminder of a challenge I faced and conquered to create something myself.
How to DIY When You Don’t DIY
Mindset of a DIYer
In order to face this new challenge and accomplish it, you have to have the right mindset. Here are my top 4 things you need to know in order to get in the right mindset to learn how to DIY.
1. No one is an expert.
You don’t know how to do that? Well, let me tell you a secret that only us DIYers know. None of us know what we’re doing.
Not at first anyway. You don’t learn how to do things until you’re hands deep in the project.
Sure, after you’ve been DIYing for awhile you pick up on things, but DIYers typically love a good challenge. We always want to try something new and learn something new.
I tore my kitchen apart with no knowledge on how to put it back together in my kitchen makeover. The cabinets got fresh paint colors, I replaced hardware and covered the countertops in contact paper. I wasn’t the expert, but I was determined to become one.
Even the most expert DIYer will tell you they don’t know everything. But they pick up the tools they need and face the challenge with the best of their knowledge.
2. Don’t overthink it.
You could spend hours looking up tutorials and reading other DIYer’s blogs, but until you actually take the steps to start a DIY, you’ll never be able to figure it out.
You’re not going to be 100% ready. Jane Doe’s house isn’t the same as yours and she can’t teach you exactly how to do the project you’re going to do for your specific home. So, you have to learn enough to get you started and then just do the thing!
You could spend your whole time thinking about how to do a project. Or you could just do it and figure things out as you go. I recommend the latter. The best way to learn is by actually doing something.
3. Learn to fail.
No one likes to fail, but if you’re going to DIY, you’re going to have to get used to failures.
I’m not saying you’re always going to fail, but just know that DIYing something is always an experiment. It won’t always turn out the way you picture or there might be a lot of bumps in the road.
Having the mindset of allowing yourself to fail rather than allowing yourself to feel defeated by any setback, will make or break a project. Failures are not the end. They’re just a roadblock that you have to get through.
Sometimes it just requires doing more research or finding an alternative route. Don’t let failure discourage you. You just learned something from it, I guarantee you.
So, if you learned something, then this was not a failure. It was a learning experience.
4. Have confidence in your abilities.
You won’t be perfect at the beginning. Your best will be your best. It might not be as good as your neighbor’s, but it’s YOUR best.
When I look back at some of my first DIYs and shake my head. I had no idea what I was doing, but I did it to the best of my abilities using the skills I currently had. I did it. That’s the most important part.
You can always go back later when you’ve learned things and fix it. That’s the beauty of DIY. You can’t usually mess something up so badly that it can’t be fixed.
So, have confidence in yourself and your current abilities and know that each project you tackle is a learning curve and you can only get better.
How to Come Up with Ideas to DIY
Sometimes what holds people back from DIYing is that they don’t know what they want to DIY. How do you get inspiration for DIYs?
While there’s many ways to get inspiration for projects around the house, these four steps are always a good start for me when I feel like I’m in a rut for ideas.
1. Look around your home for items that don’t fit.
We all have those eye sores in a room or an unwanted décor piece that’s in storage. Use these items as your inspiration. How can you change something that doesn’t belong and make it become a bold statement piece in your room?
I recently gave some end tables in my living room a facelift and turned an old vase into a faux clay vase. Both of these projects were inspired by looking at the items and seeing that they didn’t fit and figuring out a way to make them work.
2. Come up with a plan for your item.
So, now that you have an item in mind, look up ways to transform it. My typical go-to is Pinterest. You can find so many ideas on Pinterest and usually the idea comes with a how-to blog that will tell you just what to do.
If I were looking to transform an old coffee table, I might look up keywords like “coffee table makeover” or “coffee table transformation”. Pinterest will show you thousands of things other people have done and it might just get your head spinning on the perfect plan.
3. Find tutorials on how to DIY your item.
Once you have your idea, find tutorials that will help you bring your creation to life.
I like to get inspiration from others, but try to make the project unique in my way by adding my own little spin on it. Find an idea, but make it your own by adding an extra challenge that the previous person didn’t do.
I do this with cooking too. For example, if I were going to make apple crisp, I would look at a few different recipes and then take from each one to create my own version of apple crisp. I might like that article number one added caramel to theirs, but article number two had the right amount of apple verses crisp ratio. And article number three had the easiest method of combining ingredients.
So, just as might mix a few recipes together, do the same with your DIY projects. Make them your own!
4. Just get started!
Don’t waste too much of your time on planning your DIY project or worrying about how to do it. Do enough research to give you a direction on how to get started, but just jump in and try it. You’ll learn what works and what doesn’t along the way.
Trust me, I tend to think “why did I not do this sooner?” more often than “I wish I had done more research first.”
Conclusion
There’s something so amazing feeling when you step back, look at what YOU created and accomplished. I never get tired of it.
Even the DIY projects that I’m not in love with, I can still step back and say “I did that. And before I tried it, I had no clue how to do it. But I pushed through insecurities and obstacles to accomplish and learn how to DIY a new project.”
Learning how to DIY is so rewarding and I truly hope you take the chance for yourself to try something new. Take this time to better yourself and teach yourself a new skill.
It’s my new favorite self-care.
