How A DIY Renovation Could Decrease The Value Of Your Home

12 Nov How A DIY Renovation Could Decrease The Value Of Your Home

A DIY renovation may feel like an easy way to save money while adding to the value of your home. That is not always the case, however. A DIY renovation can actually end up costing you more. A DIY can also easily backfire, lowering the value of your home. 

How A Diy Renovation Could Lower Your Home’s Value 

1. Poor workmanship

It is not easy to Design or Build a home. That is why professionals work for years to learn their craft – and spend a lifetime perfecting it. Many DIY renovations are complicated and the project can go awry if details are overlooked, which a professional might have noticed. This can result in low-quality work – and you may not even know it until things start chipping, peeling, or falling apart! 

2. Not meeting safety standards

There are safety standards that homes have to meet, and the BC Building Code is part of the formula. Integrated Design professionals, as well as other professionals such as Architects and Engineers, know what these standards are and have plenty of experience meeting them. When you are doing a DIY renovation, though, you may not know the standards or how to meet them. This can leave you in a position where your renovations – or even your whole home – is deemed unsafe.

3. Damaging or removing structural elements 

If a DIY renovation goes wrong, most of the time, the home can’t simply go back to how it was before. The most critical example is structural elements: If you damage or remove a structural element, you risk destabilizing your home. The only remedy is massive, costly repairs – if the house can be saved.

4. Adding the wrong features 

Just as there are Design choices that add value to your home, there are others that can lower it. A simple example of this is paint colour. Painting every room black is very likely to cause the value of your home – and its resale potential – to drop. That is why Integrated Design professionals stay on top of what adds and removes value. With a DIY renovation, you do not have that expertise to help guide you and can easily make a Design choice that lowers the home’s value. 

5. Not creating an Integrated Design 

Integrated Design allows your entire space to work in harmony. It involves a lot of thought, communication, and precision. DIY Designs are often created based on “I like this… and that” instead of as a cohesive whole. Therefore, things can easily end up looking mismatched or disjointed. That can then make your home feel jarring or uncomfortable or even add to anxiety and stress. 

6. Choosing off-putting Design elements 

Some Design elements can be so odd or alarming that they make people uncomfortable. If these elements are not easily removed, they can be enough to put someone off a purchase. This goes beyond the value of your home and can make it almost impossible to sell. That is why, instead of a DIY renovation, we suggest always working with a team of Integrated Design professionals.