Nehaveigur

A few years back, before my wife and I had kids and we still lived in a condo in San Francisco, we asked our real estate agent how much it would be to update our kitchen. $70,000, she said, and we forgot about the idea. At least for a few days, and then I started to make inquiries how much it’d be to update the kitchen by myself. The answer was, around $10,000, but given your lack of experience doing that sort of thing, it’s probably going to be bad. I shrugged my shoulders and started work over a long weekend. I tore out the old cabinets and removed the kitchen island. I tore the old avocado-green tiles off the walls. I measured everything and ordered new cabinets and appliances. I remember seeing my father do some of that work when I was a kid, and while I didn’t remember exactly how he did it, knowing that he could do it made me confident I could as well. I watched instructional videos on YouTube. One weekend, a friend came in with his heavy power tools and we made a lot of progress. I went to the home improvement store several times a week. I connected the sink and the high amperage stove after making sure I could do this up to code. My wife helped me with the new tiles and they turned out perfectly. There were some situations where I thought I was stuck and considered calling a professional, which would have felt like defeat. In each case, after a good night’s sleep and mulling the problem over during my commute I arrived at a workable solution. It was a confidence boost unlike any other, except maybe getting my PhD a few years earlier.

We sold the place a few months later, making a profit that was at least partly due to the brand new, gleaming kitchen. But the best part was and still is that I now am supremely confident in my DIY skills. I dream of building an office shed from scratch in the backyard,, and I believe my kitchen building experience is sufficient to give me the right sense for how much work would be involved. Best of all, I can drop references to “when I built my kitchen” when DIY comes up. It was worth the investment.