Catching the Do-It-Yourself Mindset

Do-It-Yourselfer's are some of the most interesting folks around. As a professional in the residential repair business for over 25 years, I've found that do-it-youself candidates usally start out kind of slow with patience as their friend. We are fed up with contractors, tired of the expense and rigmarole that comes with hiring people to come into our homes, to complete a small or medium sized task that we could probably do ourselves, if we just had the time and expertise to do it. We are usually proficient in engineering thought and in just being able to get the right peg for the right hole. Some of us however need a little help sometimes and would love to have a true profesional that is really concerned for our wellfare as much as they are theirs. So we attempt to get someone that we know or that someone else knows to help, which in a lot of cases causes us more frustration than if we had just taken on the small job ourselves. So we try classes or seminars at our local Home Depot or Loew's even the local community college or trade school. Sometimes this works out but again what's the point in do-it-yourself, if you have to take more time to learn the project rules and the procedure than it would take to just have the brother-in-law do it in the first place?! There's the expense of the class or seminar too! So we keep up with the projects keep going to classes and usually hire at least one subcontracting professional anyway. Especially here in Texas where we know that subcontractors are required to be licensed (in most cases) and we know that general contractors or remodelers and the like are not required to be licensed. We really don't understand the contracting market because most of us have at least four years of college and these guy's appear to pride themselves on the "on the job experience" style of learning, usually at our expense. What is one to do? What about a place that we can come together on the wonderful WorldWideWeb and open up discussion forums, view the latest tips from a community where these "contractors", other do-it-yourselfer's and a host of other tools are available to help us and it doesn't require leaving the comforts of the place that we are trying to repair, remodel, maintain and just enjoy at the same time? Surely such a site , blog or forum of some sort or the other exists? Well, now it does and yes this is it. Whether it's honey-do's, small jobs, do-it-yourself projects, remodeling, repairing, restoring or just plain learning, we are ready for it here at "The Small Job Depot" Come on in - enjoy the time you spend with us and tell us your story about what went wrong? What went right? Or how you plan to make sure that your next Do-It Yourself project is a fun and exciting success!