While we’re grateful for safety standards, best practices, and yes, even building codes, we also believe that making fixes to your home shouldn’t always require paying exorbitant fees to contractors. With the right resources, and a helping hand (hence the +1) DIYers should be able to make most repairs to their home at a fraction of the cost of hiring someone to do it for them.

People learn best from other people, not just by watching endless streams of videos online. Teaching each other, and passing on the knowledge we’ve gained from previous projects is a way of building community and supporting each other.

Hiring a contractor is a gamble. We can’t often see their previous projects first-hand, and it’s impossible to judge quality from an edited photo. The contractor shows up (if you’re lucky), makes the sale and then you’re at the mercy of their employees, their timeline and their standards. Doing it yourself means that you decide how things are done, and how your project turns out.

While most of us are very happy to have an excuse to buy alllllll the tools, it can be nice to figure out what tools are necessary, which ones are absolutely ridiculous and which ones aren’t worth buying for a single project. +1s often show up with the tools you need to do the job, so you can save time and money not clicking on every single sponsored link.

Working on a project on your own is fun, but without a hard deadline, projects can drag on and on. Before you know it, you’re wondering what year that summer bathroom refresh was supposed to happen. Having someone work on the project with you keeps things moving.

It’s kinda like that party that always gets you to clean the house.

Even when you can do it yourself, you don’t have to. An extra pair of hands makes the work quicker, the load lighter, and the ideas better. Two heads are better than one.