Thursday, January 12, 2012
One of the most frequently asked questions we receive from friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers about our nearly decade long renovation and restoration of our home is really a rather simple question: "Why do you do it yourself?"
This is obviously a very generalized version of the question, since most people asking usually have their own assumptions as to why one would undertake the challenge of completing almost all major and minor tasks associated with home renovation, maintenance, and decoration themselves. And we suppose it's a more polite way of asking "why don't you just hire someone?"
Though the question may be simple, the answer falls into a far more difficult realm. And in reality, our answer has gradually changed over the years. Call it maturity, call it what you will, but we see it as an evolution of an answer.
I'd say the most common assumption as to "why" we DIY because it is less expensive. Some friends or family have even delicately suggested that we do it because we are cheap, miserly, frugal, or any other polite or inventive way to say we're tight asses with our money. Most also assume that if we had more money, we'd do less ourselves.
True story. Over the years we've actually had conversations with people that involved sentences such as, "Why would I do it myself when I have the money to hire someone?" as well as "I remember the days when I had more time than money and used to do projects too." But the reality of our situation is far more convoluted than a simple explanation like that, and it goes all the way back to when we bought our home.
Even before we started actively looking for a home, and well before we were married, we fell in love with Old Town Alexandria. I know we've said this before, but we just couldn't get over the historic district and its feel. It was so different from where we grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, and even though it's "city living," Old Town doesn't feel it cold and hard like a major city. We knew we wanted to live here, but the prices in the area were going up like crazy, we were young and just out of school and we had no way to afford the type of house we wanted.
Continue Reading Full Post
