DIY Home Improvements: What Not to Do

You've got your paint buckets, your brand new brushes, your nail gun and your power drill. All that's left is a plan---and you aren't sure exactly where to begin. Unfortunately, home owners become enthralled with the idea of DIY home improvements, but fail to think their ideas through. This leads to shoddy work, messy mistakes and potential lost value in the home. If you're going to take on a few DIY home improvements, here are five things not to do.

Brick Paths

You might think that a few brick paths would join your landscaping implements and bring harmony to your front or back lawn. While this might be the case for a professional brick-layer, it isn't a job for DIY home improvements. It's difficult for an amateur to create a perfectly flat surface on which to lay bricks, and if you aren't careful, you'll wind up with an uneven pathway that rises and falls underfoot.

Rather than purchasing a ton of bricks with which to create a path, why not lay a This gives you more leeway when it comes to laying the stones, and they don't have to be perfectly flat or centered to look professional. Fill the joints with pea gravel or cement and you have a beautiful path to accent your landscaping.

Wallpaper Removal

Unless you've removed wallpaper before and know how to do it professionally, there's a good chance you'll destroy the drywall and create a pitted surface on which to paint. Wallpaper removal is a tedious process that can take several weeks for a single room, and once you mess up, there's no turning back. Why give yourself an ulcer with DIY home improvements?

Instead, consider painting over the wallpaper. You can texture it if you are concerned about a too-flat surface, and you don't have to worry about hurting the walls. DIY home improvements are supposed to be fun and satisfying---not painful and costly.

Texture Removal

The real estate trends in the United States change on an almost yearly basis, which means that home owners get restless when they think that their furnishings and home decor goes out of date. This certainly applies to the varying degrees of textured walls that have come in and out of popularity since the 1940s. If you think that textured walls are "out", however, think again.

As far as DIY home improvements go, removing the texture on your walls would be a step in the wrong direction. Not only is it difficult, back-breaking work that rarely turns out the way you expect, but textured walls will be back "in" fairly soon, according to RealEstateJournal.com. Leave the texture and add additional coats of paint if you want to down-play them.

Drywall Patching

According to contractor Jose Nunez of Houston, Texas, drywall is much better patched by a professional than as a DIY home improvement. If you do it wrong or use too much composition, you'll wind up creating what looks like a knothole in your drywall, which won't look any better with a coat of paint.

If you're convinced you need to patch drywall, Nunez recommends calling a professional contractor. It doesn't cost much if you provide the materials, and you'll thank yourself when your walls are as smooth as a baby's bottom.

Deck Building

If you think that your backyard would look better with a deck, you're better off hiring a professional. As DIY home improvements go, this is far more difficult than it looks. Most decks are attached to roofs and foundations to create more stability, but an amateur can easily cause it to destroy the structure of the house.