5 things I wish I’d left to the pros when renovating my house, even as a seasoned renovator

It is a truth universally acknowledged that taking on smaller jobs yourself when renovating a house is key to keeping costs down.

While most people tackling a fixer-upper want to renovate on a budget, saving money by DIYing certain jobs might seem like a good idea in theory, but in practice, turn out to be harder or more extensive than originally thought.

To help you dodge the stress and potentially sub-par results of DIYing the wrong tasks, we asked seasoned renovator and regular Ideal Home contributor, Natasha Brinsmead to share the DY jobs she wishes she'd left well alone when renovating her run-down cottage into a bright and spacious family home.

1. Trying to paint external features

Natasha's cottage was full of period charm, but it's exterior needed some serious TLC, including the solid wood front door, fascias and the pebbledash render.

'We decided to strip back the paintwork of all the timber elements, which were painted a garish royal blue. We sanded them all down and prepared them for painting. This was a momentous task that took ages and I really don’t think the results were worth all that effort,' she says.

'Around six months later, the paint was peeling and in need of re-sanding and painting - clearly the preparation work we put in hadn’t been up to scratch.'

In the end, Natasha and her husband called on a professional to tackle the woodwork and render who achieved perfect results in a fraction of the time.

2. Attempting to fit a window

As experienced renovators, Natasha and her husband did a lot of the work in the kitchen on a DIY basis, apart from the construction of the walls and the digging of the foundations. However, trying to fit a new kitchen window proved extremely challenging.

'The opening was there, but getting the custom-made window to sit level was way harder than we thought,' explains Natasha. 'The opening just didn’t seem to fit the bespoke window, even though the builders had the exact dimensions. There was a lot of tweaking and shouting before we could finally fix the window in place with the window fixings.

'To add to the issues the window was also really heavy and I don’t think we quite appreciated the weight of a hardwood frame.'

3. Decorating more than one room

Painting is one of those tasks that most homeowners feel they could handle without needing to call on a professional. But even if you know how to paint a room, when you're renovating a whole house, with many rooms needing a coat of paint from ceilings down to skirting boards, it quickly becomes a mammoth job.

And when you're trying to do it while looking after children and working during the day, it's not hard to understand how enthusiasm and attention to detail can wane.

'I hate to admit it but the paint finishes in the kitchen, dining room, and especially in the downstairs bathroom are pretty patchy - particularly the ceilings.

'It’s fine if you don’t look too closely, but we did scrimp a little on the paints we used here too which makes the problem worse.'

After painting three rooms on a DIY basis, Natasha called in professional decorators to finish the rest of the interior, with great results.

4. Levelling the floors

In the dining room and snug, Natasha wanted to install oak engineered flooring over original red quarry tiles for a floor that felt much warmer underfoot.

'Before we could do this, however, we needed to address the uneven nature of the old floor,' says Natasha. 'There was no way we could have just gone and laid engineered boards straight over the tiles, even with the best underlay in the world we’d have been left with a bouncy, wonky floor.'

Despite using a self-levelling compound, like this one from Amazon, for an even finish, Natasha struggled to get the result she wanted. 'The problem was, we didn’t just need areas patching up - the whole thing needed leveling so it was messy, fiddly, took ages to get right and, in all honesty, there are still a few bouncy spots.'

'We should really have called in the pros who could have screeded and achieved a better finish.'

5. Trying to build the floor in the extension

Natasha's renovation included a two-storey extension on the side of the house to create an additional bedroom upstairs and a multi-use snug/guest bedroom on the ground floor.

'While we left the brickwork and construction of the new roof to the professionals, we chose to build the structure of the new first floor ourselves - another job we had, perhaps, underestimated the enormity of.

'There was a lot of measuring and re-measuring - a DIY mainstay - where a professional would have done this in a quarter of the time.'

If you're not a confident DIYer, try wetting your whistle with these easy DIY projects to build up your experience.