I’ve been thinking a lot about the final estimated cost of our original plan for our house that I shared on Friday, and how ridiculously absurd that plan would have been. Of course, a large portion of that cost was for a contractor. That’s money I can save from the beginning. But there were huge amounts of money there for things I could certainly do myself and save money.
Lately (for the last few months, actually) I’ve caught myself with this mentality of “Just pay someone else to do it and finish faster.” either, “Just buy what you want and move on.”But I don’t think that’s why people started following my blog. People started following me because I was doing DIY projects on my own. I was building, remodeling, sewing, upholstering and doing almost everything myself.
As Matt and I have gained more financial freedom over the last decade, the trend is to do less DIY and simply pay others to do more. Or instead of building something to save money, just buy it ready-made. And as I prepare to move forward with our new plan, which requires redoing several rooms in our house, I’ve noticed my mind drifting more and more toward those thoughts of “Simply pay what is necessary and do it as quickly as possible.“It’s nice to have more freedom to do that these days, but as far as the blog goes, it’s almost a bait and switch.
I feel that bait and switch when I read other blogs that I’ve been reading for almost as long as I’ve been writing and that started out as DIY blogs but have now morphed into something very different. Those first DIY houses they owned were long ago fixed up and sold for huge profits, and those profits have now allowed those bloggers to live in multi-million dollar homes (in states other than New York or California ). Those cool money-saving DIY projects have been swapped out for posts about your new $1,200 lamp along with an affiliate link where you can also purchase your $1,200 lamp. Your blog, which used to seem so relatable, now seems unattainable to most people. And the DIY projects that used to fill their blogs now only appear occasionally.
I really don’t have a problem with what other people do with their blogs. Maybe that was their goal all along and that’s wonderful for them. As long as I’m interested, I’ll keep following it. If I ever lose interest, I can always unfollow. It’s no big deal and they certainly aren’t obligated to keep doing DIY just for my entertainment.
But my goal was never to start a DIY blog and then transform it into something different. And last weekend, while looking for new nightstands for our next bedroom, I had to remind myself of this. When I started looking for nightstands, my thought was: “I’ll go ahead and buy them so they’ll be here and ready when I’m ready to start putting the room together.“Basically, I was planning to buy everything, have it here (probably stored in my workshop for now) until the floor is finished, and then I can move all the newly purchased furniture into the room, call it good, and move on to the next room as quickly as possible.” possible.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s what most people do. But most people are not DIY bloggers. I had to stop when I realized I was looking at nightstands that cost up to $1800 eachand I was actually seriously considering them. Like saying to myself: “Well, if that’s what you really want, buy two and move on to the next decision. Just do this!“
There was a time when buying two $1,800 nightstands would have seemed ridiculous. The idea of spending that amount of money on nightstands would have seemed absurd to me. I would have found a way to do what I wanted for a fraction of the price. And that was the idea behind my blog. That’s what I wanted to share with other people. I wanted to show others how can really achieve a champagne look on a beer budget. And yet, just yesterday I was seriously considering paying $3,600 for two nightstands out of convenience.
That’s a far cry from my DIY roots. That’s a completely different mindset than the one that started this blog. And that seems like a complete betrayal of my blog’s mission statement which you can read on my About page which says: “…my goal is to inspire YOU to let go of fear and doubt, grab those power tools and dive into your home-related DIY projects so you can turn your house into the home of your dreams without spending a fortune on others . do the work you could do yourself.“
So what does it all mean? Well, it means I’m going to exit the IKEA website and close the browser tabs I’ve had open for weeks with their PAX and kitchen design tools. It means no more IKEA cabinets in my future. It means I’ll be buying a lot of sheets of plywood for the closet/laundry room project (but I have a lot to share with you on that topic later). It means I’ll be buying even more plywood for the kitchen remodel. It means I’m going to get my money’s worth on my new workshop that we just paid a good amount of money for. And it means that when I said “Challenge Accepted” at the end of Friday’s post about seeing how much money I can save, I’m going to take that challenge very seriously. And it means I’m going back to my DIY roots and keeping the vision and mission of my blog in mind as a guide for all future decisions.
That doesn’t mean everything will be done by yourself. In fact, something pretty big is going to happen early next week and there’s no way I’ll ever do something like that. I would only let a professional do that project. (More on that as we get closer.) But if I’m capable and have the knowledge (or can learn as I go), I’ll probably do it myself.
So the first project after finishing the new bedroom floor will probably be to build new nightstands. These are the ones I had marked as favorites when I was still in the “just buy something” mentality. I’ll probably use one of these (or a combination) as inspiration when I build ours.
In this one, I love everything but the feet. You all know I love turned wood legs and feet, so I would use some round turned feet instead. (Arthelia 3-Drawer Nightstand, $349.99)
And here it is. This is my favorite. I love everything about this one right down to the hardware. (Newport Wood Nightstand, $1,829)
I really like the drawers on this one. I like the frames around the drawers and how the drawers are recessed. I also like the tone of the wood and think it would look great over white wainscoting and under teal grass fabric. Although I wish it were a little wider. (Rosalie nightstand, $1199)
This one is too dark for my taste, but I love the simple style, shape, size, and overall design. (Soline Wooden Nightstand, $799)
This one is very similar in style, except it has an additional shelf at the bottom, along with a very simple and subtle detail around the edges of the drawers. This would be very easy to build! (Rosalie nightstand, $1049)
But then there’s this, with the turned legs and the continuous frame around the drawers. (Stacy Nightstand, $419.99)
I love the whole design of this one with the top drawer looking like two smaller drawers, the trim around the middle, and the decorative trim around the bottom. Although the color is too orange for my taste. (Agnis 3-Drawer Side Table, $559.99)
And finally, there’s this two-tone design. The entire top is covered in a sort of raffia texture, which I wouldn’t do. If I were going to do two tone, I would just make a stained wood base and then paint the top with an accent color. Hakana 2-drawer nightstand, $1393
So, that’s all the nightstands I had saved when I was still planning to buy some, and I admit the second one (the $1,829 Newport Wood Nightstand) was the favorite. But now that I’m going to create my own, I can really decide which features are my favorites and possibly do a combination of some of my favorites.
One of my problems, which I have struggled with for years, is that ongoing tension between the more traditional style with turned legs and pretty trim, and the more contemporary style with straight legs and no (or much less) trimming. My taste has always been divided between those two. When people ask me what my style is, I always say it’s traditional coloring with modern (sometimes contemporary) touches. Traditional usually wins, but I don’t like everything to be traditional because then I think the room looks a little stuffy. So I try to add some modern touches to keep things interesting.
Perhaps the nightstands are the modern touch for the bedroom. I know the header won’t be. I will make a fully upholstered headboard for the room. And the wood siding will not be. That will be very traditional. And grass cloth is generally not a specific style on its own. It depends on what you put in it. So I’m not 100% sure which direction I’ll take, but if I had to choose right now, I’d go with the second nightstand: the $1829 Newport Wood Nightstand. That was one of my favorites at the time. I saw it.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 upper that my husband Matt and I purchased in 2013. Matt has MS and can’t do physical labor, so I do most of the work in the house alone. You can learn more about me here.
