Why I Quit DIY (2014) | Hacker News Reader

Why I Quit DIY (2014)

schoolofdecorating.com

30 pointsjasonhansel63 comments

This sounds more like (the very very common) "never do your hobby as a job". Nearly all of their points about DIY come back to them feeling like their hobby had turned into a pressure-inducing full-time job, and that's a personal issue, nothing to do with DIY itself.

I've been a DIYer/maker/whatever-its-called-this-year since as long as I can remember. It doesn't mean I'm going to feel pressured to spend weeks fix the family TV rather than just go buy a new one on the day, and it doesn't mean I need to fix/build every single thing in the house. It just means I enjoy making/fixing/building projects when inspiration strikes.

I keep it as a hobby by picking and choosing which projects I'll actually enjoy and/or which ones will benefit me in some way ($20 DIY fix on a $900 washing machine "benefits" me even if it's not as enjoyable).

"($20 DIY fix on a $900 washing machine "benefits" me even if it's not as enjoyable)"

I suspect this is why most people do it. I know saving momey is why I fix and build things.

I replaced my toilet by myself, after watching a few dozen youtube videos. I was so scared because I'm a germophobe but $250 was too much for me not to try.

The internal warmth from the glow of saving that money instead of hiring a plumber lasted at least 3 days.

> The internal warmth from the glow of saving that money instead of hiring a plumber lasted at least 3 days.

the ikea effect in action...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect

Thanks for the link!

I don't think it applies in this case however. There is no explicit cognitive bias at play. There would be if he considered his job is as good or better than plumber's (although actually, unless he has a very particular toilet setup, doing a good job after meticulous research and preparation is not out of reach at all).

In any case, even doing an OK job which is definitely worse than a plumber's but holds (and will presumably hold) is still a win if you're short on money but can spare the time/motivation.

I never thought of assembling IKEA furniture as "do it yourself". Just part of the unpacking process.

Yeah, I've heard a lot of people say that putting together Ikea furniture is a PITA or strains their relationship or whatever, and I don't get it. I just read the instructions and put the pieces where they go like any other thing that comes in a box some assembly required.

Then again, I used to work in a retail position where I assembled so many things with far inferior construction and instructions. All in a day's work.

OTOH when people kitbash or modify Ikea furniture, I think that extends a bit into DIY. But putting it together out if the box doesn't count IMO.

I used to feel this way. Then I started dating someone who, while otherwise reasonably successful and intelligent, had a house filled with incorrectly-assembled Ikea furniture.

I think some people just have a mental block when it comes to this type of activity. Imagining how two parts will fit together in the physical world or perceiving an order of operations to assembly, even if laid out in an easily parsed instruction booklet, just causes their brain to disengage for some reason.

See I have the opposite feeling - I don't like to clean so I hire a cleaning lady, I don't want to spend hours on YouTube and risk my toilet leaking through to the apartment blow. My main issue is that even when I hire someone/buy something it's really hard to know if it will actually be what I expect. If I need to spend time informing myself to make a good decision then the equation changes, and a lot of things these days don't deliver satisfying results by default.

What makes you think anybody you hire will be competent and not cause it to leak? Do it yourself at least you can make sure it's done right.

Because you would hire a professional plumber with insurance and if it leaks you use your home insurance to cover and damage and then they go after the plumbers insurance to recoup their cost so your premiums don’t go up.

See but the damage is only a small part of that story, time, effort and stress is far worse for me.

You think you are better at installing toilets than the average professional plumber?

No but if I have to watch over the guy and investigate what he's supposed to be doing I might as well do it myself, then it's not worth the money.

Would you hire the Geek Squad to fix your PC?

That's exactly my point. I wish I could really on people being professional, but I've been bitten by this. Fortunately I also have reliable contacts at this point - people that did good work for me and delivered more than I expected - I pay these people more than they ask and go to them or ask for referrals

I think that's a call you make to maximize enjoyment. Take on what you're curious about, not what you dread.

Another part of the equation is - don't be afraid to ask for or hire help. Some people take on some projects because they don't want to or don't know they can ask for help.

> This sounds more like (the very very common) "never do your hobby as a job”

“But yield who will their separation,

My object in living is to unite

My avocation and my vocation

As my two eyes make one in sight.

Only where love and need are one,

And the work is play for mortal stakes,

Is the deed ever really done

For Heaven and the future's sakes.”

― Robert Frost

I'm definitely getting better at choosing my projects; I was raised in a family of do-everything-yourselfers with a bit of a complex about never getting new/nice things. Since buying a house of my own I've come to accept that I have neither the time nor expertise to handle every project by myself, and whenever a new project rears its ugly head I do some calculations of time vs money vs experience and fun.

I'm currently waiting on a dryer solenoid in the mail. It's a project that got slightly out of hand, over time but (as of yet) under budget, and I've learned a lot about what's going on inside my dryer which is the best reason to take on a project like this.

At the end of the project the greatest satisfaction comes from knowing how my home appliances function, and understanding them well enough to be sure they are operating safely and efficiently. That, and being able to tumble-dry clothes and towels.

I also enjoy DIY a lot more if I forgive myself.

With a job, "stop starting and start finishing" is an important mantra.

With DIY I think if you have too many projects, you give up on a project, or you just lose interest... It. is. OK!

Really, there's no reason to add to your many responsibilities at the cost of losing your enjoyment, your playfulnes, or your stress relief.

This is a weird article.

Besides being over-dramatic, she focuses on her past belief DIY is mostly about saving money, and being proved wrong. Therefore she needs to quit DIY like it's a drug or something.

Optimizing only for time and money is an awful way to live in my opinion. I like learning how things work, becoming skilled at a task so I can help other people, etc.

As an anecdote, I actually just sat right down now after installing a dash cam in my car.

I had to learn how to tap into the right fuses, how to remove door panels without breaking them, cable management, etc. Had to used service manuals made for mechanics and lots of youtube to figure it all out.

Took 6 hours and maybe $10 in tools. I could have had a mechanic do it in 1 hour for ~$150 if I wanted though.

But now I understand more how wiring and interior panels work, which is really satisfying. I'm planning on doing this again with my friend's car, and with a dashcam I bought my mom for mother's day. I'm happy to give her something that will give me more peace of mind while she's driving.

You may be skipping bit of nuance from the article. She wrote "I DIYed for the same reason most people do. To save money. To make it exactly the way I wanted (can we say control issues?). And to put my personal stamp on it." It's not just money. And sometimes if you're caught up in something too much and stop enjoying it, it's nice to have a break and reevaluate. Kind of like a drug if you need to figure out if you want to keep going.

I completely agree with you. My “motto” if you will is: if someone else can do it, I can do it. Maybe not as quickly or as well, but I’ll learn a lot.

I am self-taught when it comes to working on cars, but I can now take an intake manifold off and replace fuel injectors as well as clean valves. Brakes and calipers are something I don’t ever think I’d pay someone else to do again

Interesting motto, so you could prove Fermat's last theorem?

Great comment! I had a laugh!

I used to feel the same way about brakes. But forty or so brake jobs and 25 years later, I do pay somebody else to do them when one of my daily drivers needs it, just so I don't have to bother. I still work on my 'toy' cars, but then that's what they're there for.

https://youtu.be/9ALOI63X_CE

Honestly, I don't care about DIY costs. I tend to make things when I need something specific or different that isn't readily-available. I can make things, but I have other priorities. Like hydroponics: I bought an automated garden rather than putting one together because time and simplicity. And, I have so much stuff already, I don't need anymore. Plus, the accumulation of tools and supplies to DIY is never-ending and costly.

Oh, and maintaining, restoring, and customizing my VW van is plenty of DIY for me.

Wow, an automated garden? Can you share more on that or drop some links about it?

I used to grow weed and was trying to go in that direction before shutting down.

I was able to tie alexa into water pumps, so I would just say "Alexa, flood top tray" and it would water my clones.

I half joked about the goal being "Alex, grow weed"

I was a little suspicious when I got to the pitch at the end. I like to read through blog archives and I've seen a pattern of blogs becoming more commercialized as they become popular and the authors realize they can monetize. I wrote a post about a particularly clear example:

https://wordpress.com/posts/bancosparenting.wordpress.com

I'm sure there's more money to be made from as an interior decorating consultant vs. by providing inspiration and tutorials to budget-conscious DIYers. Not to discount the truth of her story but it leaves me skeptical that this is the whole story.

As someone who aspires to grow a blog audience and reach people with my ideas it makes me want to keep a close eye on my own values and how they may change over time once there's a personal financial benefit depending on the kind of advice I give.

Growing up poor and having an engineering mindset, I was all about DIY until about a year ago when my wife pointed out that DIY comes at the expense of "done." It's easy to get sucked into repair projects and eventually figure out how to DIY but meanwhile the family goes w/o the thing working, which could be remedied by a quick trip to the store.

The thing that I think is important is to have the confidence and ability to know that you could DIY even if you aren't choosing to in a given situation.

This is a very similar thing to what we face in software, honestly, with the choice between building it ourselves or using a library.

It's always tempting to build it ourselves but it often means we're now building the library instead of the thing we wanted to build on top of the library.

DIY is important when you need control. Sometimes the libraries just don't do what you want the way you want it.

Luckily software replicates for free, unlike physical work

I think of that as a constraint on when to diy.

If you have a clear view of what done is, and the way you get there, diy is great.

Eg. Fixing my socks by darning them is great.

I am sometimes working on DIY projects, be it electronics or home renovation things, for the same reason I started programming - it seems interesting and I would like to understand how things work and possibly make something awesome. I guess it is part of engineering mindset.

While my interest in computers resulted in IT career, I don't have the same expectations for all the DIY things that I do. I understand those are just hobbies that make life more interesting.

And I think that I still understand when to buy instead of DIY. :)

Same.

I'm currently building an office. By that I mean I've done all the work to coordinate building an office. I also ran the network wiring and will do the drywall. I built a few of the framing panels and contracted out the rest. I LOVE building things with my hands but it's been a year and my office isn't done. I have a kid and a job and pets and a million incomplete tasks. Sometimes I do it because I was poor and think about money and other times I just want to know I can. When things finally need to get done though, the cost benefit analysis is usually done pretty quickly. Nobody is paying me to do framing and the time I get to spend with my family is finite, so I pay.

Drywall is one of those things that isn't a bad idea to hire a pro if you can find one. I'm guilty of not doing this and it was a time sink. Happy with the result at least.

I just have two dishwashers. One is often getting fixed.

I no longer identify with being a DIY blogger.

Ah. The real issue.

Yea, seems the blog became a chore.

As an avid DIYer that suffered from something similar, I've now set myself three rules that really make a big difference.

There are only three reasons DIY something;

1. The item you want is physically unobtainable, and he only way to get exactly what you want is to build it yourself.

2. Existing consumer solutions are much, much more expensive than what you could build yourself (a factor of at least 5x)

3. Building it for pure fun and knowledge with absolutely no expectations that the result will be useful or impressive in any way.

My favourite projects are ones that fulfill all 3 rules :)

if you love doing something, don't do too much of it.

i don't even remember where i first read that but it's been with me for a long time.

as others have mentioned, the author is experiencing a case of burnout. and i may add that the blogging and showing other people aspect has made it worse. to the point i felt the author was doing it for others first.

i have seen it over and over with many youtubers and other creators. but apparently blogging is not immune to it.

I volunteer for trail clearing at my favorite ski hill every summer for a couple of days. It's dangerous working on steep slope with twenty other guys, all of us weekend warriors with our chainsaws. But wow is it fun cutting new powder lines through the forest and hitting them the following winter. Doing this full time though would be hell.

What general area is this hill? Sounds like there must be some sweet lines!

https://www.skicastle.ca/wintermaps/

https://www.skicastle.ca/event/drifterday/

Hard to describe how steep the hill is.

https://youtu.be/h90QWRFikMk

https://youtu.be/Z9MP6j_6CTw

Hah I was going to guess either Fernie, castle, or something up northern BC like at Smithers

I’ve always wanted to stop in at castle on my way to or from fernie.

Sounds like you are living your best life congrats!

Yeah it's pretty sweet!

So weird. Why didn’t she sell any of the junk she made, at least to free up space in the house and recoup some of the money? I diy build and refurbish furniture, and I sell my projects all the time just to get them out of the house - I make about enough money to pay for my tools and materials. I’m not getting rich, but it makes the hobby more sustainable. And it’s crazy easy to sell stuff on the internet now.

> And my worst nightmare…maybe seeing my projects made you feel inadequate about your abilities or home.

What a weird thing to think. People want to learn from experts. This is how we improve. It’s bizarre to me to think you’d quit your blog because people might be reading it and possibly feeling bad because your skill level is so far beyond theirs.

I think that's part of the marketing pitch in her pivot to becoming an interior decorating consultant.

This post is a classic description of burnout that affects many creators, whether they're craftsmen, visual artists, musicians, sculptors, or what have you.

The depth and intensity of this struggle is something that few non-artists appreciate or understand.

Some artists react by taking a break from creating, and may come back to it in a week or a month. Some don't come back to it for years or decades. Some never do.

I don't have answers that would be guaranteed to work for everyone, or anyone, really, but what helped me was to embrace randomness much more in my art, and trying to nudge my work in a direction that I like rather than attempting to force it to be a certain way.

I now look at my art as more of a plant that I help to grow, where we are the collaborators in the end result, rather than trying to build according to a pre-planned blueprint.

Perfectionism is something that I had to abandon, and I've come to be much more accepting of art that at some stage looks "bad", because I know that if I continue working on it it'll probably drift in to a state I like at some point, even if it's nothing like I intended or envisioned earlier on in the process.

Making art just to please myself is something else that's helped. I'm not trying to win any popularity contests with my work, and don't really care what other people think of it.. in fact, I rarely show it to anyone. Though some of it is online, I don't think many people have seen it, and I've gotten little feedback on it.. but even when I have it doesn't matter to me if someone thinks it's great or awful.

I still try to improve my art, but only to my own standards, so that I myself like it more. It can still be frustrating when my work is not as moving to me as I'd like or when I feel like I'm repeating myself, but I don't feel nearly as bad when I was comparing my work with the great masters, or with some ideal.

On the other hand, I've sometimes wonder if the cure to burnout in art is to make more art, and to just work through it, no matter how you feel. I haven't pursued that path myself, but I have heard of others working this way. I've heard that Stephen King, for instance, likes to think of himself as a bricklayer, laying one brick on top of another as he writes. A bricklayer doesn't wait for inspiration to strike before hey lay the next brick, they just do it. Many other artists and writers have the same workman-like attitude, and are very disciplined about it, keeping their butt in the chair when it comes time to write, no matter how they feel. It's not my way, but it seems to have worked well for lots of pros.

I wish I had the luxury to quit diy but it is very hard to find trades or people to fix things where I live rurally, often the ones that are available are bad.

Finished my basement, landscaping, fixing appliances, fixed a broken ski, ski boot fitting, lawnmower repair, redid all my footer drains and most of it by hand. Underground greenhouse. Learned how to level my house and made my basement walls floating. Finished exterior of my house. Saved thousands of dollars of course. Have a lot of tools too. I do enjoy physical labor. Nothing gets you in shape like digging a huge hole.

Custom solutions are very often DIY, even without any hacking intent. Sometimes, the time you spend on DIY saves you time and money in the long term. Then, no, I just can’t quit DIY!

Blogging as a career finished dying with the advent of Patreon and Substack.

https://theoutline.com/post/2571/no-one-makes-a-living-on-pa...

Also... This blogger is writing about feeling class guilt for making art installations and fixing secondhand pierone stuff, not doing remodels or repairing appliances.

It's about keeping costs down and dealing with cowboy contractors. I can fix things on my own schedule and not be bothered when a contractor fails to show. I also save $$$ doing it myself knowing what's been done.

It sounds like burnout IYAM. Don't overdo it and you won't burnout. Take vacations and breaks. Do other things.

(2014)

Sounds more like “why I quit making decor from HGTV” than anything to do with DIY projects.

What's the distinction you draw between making and DIY?

Branding and marketing?

This article has nothing to do with DIY. It's a simple thing:

If you enjoy a hobby, do it for the enjoyment, and not because it saves you money.

If you don't enjoy a hobby, don't do it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com