One of the hardest things for me is hiring someone for a job that I know I’m capable of doing myself. I have a hard time doing it, and even when I know it makes sense to hire someone else to do it while I focus on something else, it’s still very difficult for me.
It’s not that I feel like I have anything to prove to myself or anyone else. After everything I’ve done, either by myself or with help, in this house over the last ten years, I don’t feel like I have anything more to prove to myself. I know I’m capable. So most of the time, it comes down to a question of money. It’s very hard for me to write a check to someone else when I know I could have saved that money by doing it myself.
And that brings me to the progress of our bedroom…or lack thereof. I’m the type of person who can sometimes take forever to make a decision. But once I make that decision and I’m ready to move forward, I actually want it done yesterday. Or last week. So when I realized that the floor and subfloor needed to be ripped out and a new subfloor and floor installed, I called a guy who had done a lot of work on our house in the past for an estimate.
He was on vacation when I called him, so I had to wait about two weeks for him to come back and look at the room. Then it took him a couple of days to give me an estimate. Then I noticed a couple of things were missing from the estimate, so he revised it. And when I got the new estimate, that’s when my handyman brain took over.
The estimate came to $5,250. That’s for removing the current hardwood flooring and subfloor, and also removing the walls that form the closet area. To refresh your memory, here’s what it looks like now…
So all of these walls will come out to square off the room and make it look bigger.
That means we will gain about 32 inches and this wall will be uninterrupted all the way to the current TV wall.
And then this wall will end at this white line, and then it will turn right again towards the bedroom door.
The view from the bedroom door will look much better because about 32 inches of this left wall will be removed.
These are all closet walls, so none of them are weight bearing. The back wall (i.e. the TV wall) of the closet area is weight bearing, but that wall stays in place.
Once all that is removed, they will patch the drywall, install new underfloor insulation, a new vapor barrier, and a new subfloor. When they are done, I will install the new hardwood flooring and then sand, stain, and seal it.
Like I said, once I got the estimate, my handyman brain went into overdrive. I don’t at all want to imply that the time and effort they put into doing that job wasn’t worth the estimated cost. I don’t think it’s an outlandish estimate. But at the same time, $5,250 isn’t a small amount of money, and my handyman brain always wants to convince me that I could do it myself and save money.
I am fully capable of removing non-load-bearing walls. While I hate patching drywall, it is something I have had to do countless times. And while I would probably want to ask for help, I am certainly capable of ripping out floors and subfloors. I have done that, too, and the last time I did it, my family came and helped me, and we did it quickly. Except that time, we were removing drywall and old insulation from the ceiling, drywall and wood slats from the walls, floors, and subfloors. And it didn’t even take us a full day to do it.
It’s very difficult to know if I’m fully capable and if I could save over $5,000 by doing it myself. So it took me a few days to think about it and weigh the pros and cons of doing it myself or hiring someone.
In the end, I decided to hire them to do it. I think it’s a much more efficient use of time. Sure, I could do it myself. But at what cost? I could save myself that $5,000, but it would probably take me weeks to do what they can do in days. And while they’re working on that room, I can be doing other things, much more fun and interesting things, like working on my studio bathroom and the hall bathroom. And I’m sure those are things you’d rather be doing. Watching me tear down walls and rip out floors and subfloors for weeks would probably be about as interesting as watching paint dry.
So I finally told Jose this morning to get me on the schedule. I’m not going to lie. It’s a tough decision for me. But I’m also motivated by my desire to get into that bedroom as soon as possible. The new flooring is already here in the dining room and it’s been taking up too much space for a couple weeks now for it to get acclimated before it’s installed, and I’m ready to move on. I don’t know when they can start yet. When I first talked to him about a week and a half ago, he told me it would take about two weeks. But then I took too long to make a decision and get on his schedule, so it’s possible another project has taken that first available spot. But I’m hoping it won’t be too much longer. Once I made the decision to let them do it, I felt good about it. And I felt pretty relieved, to be honest. So I’m not changing my mind. I’m excited to see some progress made there, even if it’s by someone else’s hands.
Addicted 2 Decorating is a place where I share my DIY and decorating experience while remodeling and decorating the 1948 home my husband Matt and I purchased in 2013. Matt has multiple sclerosis and is unable to do physical labor, so I do most of the work around the house alone. You can learn more about me here.
