6 Great Reasons To Be a Do-It-Yourselfer

Growing up, I've always been a very hands on person. Most of my toys were of the construction nature, allowing me to assemble them however my imagination dictated. During the middle school years, I was engaged in all type of do-it-yourself projects like building the classic potato gun (which didn't work out too well) to weaving a full size duct-tape suit for no real reason, other than to make B grade home movies with scripts only my friends thought were funny.

 

I carried this ideology into my adult years, having gotten into the field of carpentry. Everyday, I am presented with different problems that need to be solved. It certainly is challenging and at times frustrating, but at the end of the day, there is a sense of achievement you feel when you see something you built with you hands and ingenuity. It's great to hear yourself say, "that was worth it”.

 

There are many reason why building up the motivation and doing it yourself is worth the price of admission. Here are my top 6 reasons.

You'll never know until you try isn't a platitude, it's a fact. This holds true when trying out for a sport team, riding a bike without training wheels or just trying to figure out how to stiffen a wobbly platform. This principle is a must when making the change to adulthood, but too often we get there, we settle into our comfort bubbles and don't want to venture too far out.

 

I'm challenging you to challenge yourself. It doesn't matter if it's related to cooking, decorating or building your kids their own playhouse, the experience of trying something new will force you to discover unearthed talents, pleasures and goals you'll soon have for yourself. You can bet the farm, or perhaps a farm playhouse that these things won't just affect you in that small area too, but soon in everything you do. I can certainly tell you from personal experience, challenge makes you grow, in mind, body and spirit. It's pretty awesome.

Having a hobby can be very therapeutic. But how will you discover a new hobby if you don't get yourself out there to try it out? For myself, designing the many playhouses you see on my website was a lot of fun, maybe more so than most of the other leisure activities I engage in. It felt great to get my creative juices freed and onto paper, digital paper that is.

 

It was only two years ago that I had no idea what sketchup was or how to use any type of CAD program, but now, I'm glad I invested so much time into learning it.

Life can have it's drama, and often people turn to rather unhealthy habits to distract them. Finding a new hobby that takes all of your mind and body is a great way to develop healthy habits to calm the nerves.

Take it from me, when you start a project and it finally comes together, it's an amazing feeling. It doesn't have to be anything major either. In fact it can as simple as making a tasty dinner or painting an old piece of furniture.

What is better than keeping your own cash for something you can achieve yourself? When it comes to home improvement, most of the costs go toward the labor involved. Sure it may take you more time to paint that room or install that light fixture, but allowing your wallet to stay that much thicker is sure to put a smile on most people.

Wow, there are so many bloggers and regular folks that love to talk to each other about the current projects they're working on. The community is also a great resource for that extra motivation you need to kick of that new idea you want to work on and keep you going along the way. There are several big DIY forums on-line, where you can see both simple to elaborate gigs people have gotten themselves into, with all types of people asking questions and showing their support. I'm sure you'll soon see that doing it yourself can be a very social experience.

I loved watching my dad take whatever broken household item he had down to the basement, putting it on his work bench and tearing it apart to find the offending component. The VCR was usually the culprit, always tracking wrong and eating the tapes in a semi-cookie monster fashion.

 

Getting hands on with your kids makes for a great bonding experience few other activities can match. It both let's them know that daddy is capable of handling problems little they might face while showing them it's OK to tackle a problem that can seem a bit intimidating at first. It also gets kids to ask a lot of questions, which being slightly annoying, is an important development process for learning about the world they live in.

 

So what's stopping you? All of us have things we're capable of, that we'll never know until we try them.  To give you a head start, I offer several free playhouse plans you can download today to look over and see if that's something you'd like to jump into.   I'll encourage you to get your hands a little dirty and try something new.

 

- Paul