| 2 min. read |

As a recent homeowner and Cricut owner, I have found myself in many situations where I have chosen to execute a DIY project over buying the finished goods from Etsy or some other website.

When deciding whether you want to execute a DIY or not, there are three important considerations:

1. Just because you DIY, it does not mean it is significantly less expensive than if you were to not
2. Time is money!
3. Usually things do not go to plan

Recently, my fiancé and I decided that our gold fire grate for the fireplace would look much better if it were black (especially after looking at the cost to replace a fire grate). So we decided we would take it out to the backyard and spray paint it. While this was less expensive than replacing the existing grate – which would have been anywhere from $500 – $1000, this project still cost us about $80 worth of materials.

As new homeowners, we literally have nothing on hand, so we had to buy sandpaper to sand the finish so the paint would adhere to the gold finish. Then we bought primer, high-heat spray paint, black high-heat spray paint x2, and a high-heat top coat. We also had to buy painter’s tape to protect the glass doors during the spray painting process.

After spending all of that money on materials, the process of taping off the fire grate, painting it with a total of 5 coats of spray paint, and reinstalling it took about 2 days in total. However, to be transparent, this process took us about 2 weeks. After we primed and painted the fire grate with 2 coats of black spray paint, the finish was very dull and flat (which makes sense because we bought matte paint). The color was so flat that it looked like a charcoal gray instead of black. On top of the color not looking quite right, every time we would touch the grate, the paint would transfer to our fingers. So we decided to order a high-heat gloss top coat, which took a week to arrive. Once we received the top coat, we were able to apply two coats for an even finish and reinstall the grate in our fireplace after it had fully dried.

So did we save money? Yes, we saved a significant amount of money, which is always a positive, but that money was saved at the expense of our free time. In this scenario, I would say that a weekend’s worth of work is definitely worth saving $400-$900, but this may not be the case in all DIY scenarios. Before you tackle your next DIY, I highly recommend considering the amount of money you are saving versus the time invested.