Tips For The Perfect DIY home maintenance projects

There’s a joke that does the rounds about DIY home maintenance every now and again: “If your husband says he will fix something around the house, he will do it. There’s no need to keep nagging him every six months.”

While it may be amusing, we often delay cleaning and repair tasks that don’t spark joy, especially during busy times.

If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and tackle a few of those outstanding projects we have some tips.

DIY home maintenance when you’re home more

Tradespeople often say they’re called after DIY jobs fail, so unless experienced, stick to smaller, simple projects. Leave plumbing and electrical work to the pros. Avoid using dangerous tools if you’re unfamiliar with them.

However, you can do plenty of things around the house.

Sort your storage

First things first, it’s decluttering time. Go through your linen closet, your wardrobe, your kitchen cupboards and your laundry. Have separate piles of things to keep, repurpose, sell online, pass on to charity and throw away.

If overwhelmed, start with a type of item, such as jackets, shoes, or towels. With your entire collection in front of you, it should be easy to make decisions.

There is no better feeling than an organised wardrobe, pantry or toy room. While decluttering, keep a cloth and bucket of warm soapy water handy for wiping things down.

Contactless Collection

Many local furniture and department stores are open and offering contactless collection so do some research if you are looking to buy shelves or storage units to help tidy your home. Flat-pack bookshelves, storage units, or shelves can significantly organize your home and are easy to assemble.

If you don’t want to make some spare cash from decluttering, why not consider donating some of your reusable belongings to a local charity.

Cleaning: Go deep

It’s not an attractive prospect but there are certain cleaning tasks that you’ll find very satisfying to complete.

These include:

• Under the fridge
• Under the beds
• Behind and under the couch
• The outside gutters
• Your oven
• Your fridge
• The front door (or consider pressure washing the entire front of your house, including your driveway)
• Air conditioner filter

You can delegate tasks like polishing doorknobs or cleaning windows to older children, with an incentive for their participation.

The advantages of doing a deep clean include appliances working better than they have in a while and potentially discovering areas of your home that are in real need of attention.

Many hardware stores had to put a cap on cleaning supply sales with a limited amount available to each customer. While there is still plenty available, you might wish to get creative and make your own cleaning supplies.

Get handy with DIY home maintenance

Tasks like fixing leaky taps, repairing gates, filling cracks and tidying up outside are all good for DIY. You will find a lot of tutorials online to help you get the job done the right way.

You could also take on a painting project and use your time at home to paint a bedroom or space in your home that needs freshening up. Again, track down some tips and stick to them. Painting can be harder than it looks and the bulk of the work is in the preparation.  

Here’s a step-by-step guide to painting the interior of your home. It includes a list of the supplies you will need.

Find a project

You might also wish to up-cycle some furniture, repurpose space in your home as a study, build some basic shelves in the garage or get to work on an outdoor playhouse now you have the time.

Take each DIY home maintenance project step by step and try not to rush. If you have older children, try involving them with less challenging parts so they can join your sense of achievement. Some projects kids might enjoy include sanding and repainting furniture, making a mosaic from old broken tiles or helping to sew new curtains.

Another project you will be pleased you got your teeth into is finding your favourite photos, printing them and creating a wall display. Again, this can be a fun one to work on with children.

Be Creative

If you’re really creative (and a little brave), you could work on a mural to add some personality to one of your walls. Use light colours so it can be painted over when the time comes. Here’s another step-by-step guide.

One thing to keep in mind when planning projects is the impact they will have on the value of your home. If you’re thinking of listing your property for sale (or rent) this year, focus on deep cleaning, repairs and cosmetic upgrades so your property looks its best when the agent, photographer and buyers come through.