This summer I had a big decision to make. After a few years of procrastination I knew I could no longer put it off any longer. My house needed to be painted.
Here is the scenario. I live in St. Louis Park and own a rambler style home with a detached two-car garage. After years of explaining to my wife that it is easiest to just paint the house the same color as it was before, I knew this was no longer going to work. If our house was going to be re-painted, it was going to be three new colors. Also, thanks to my procrastination, the house was dry. It was going to need/take two coats of paint.
The choice was to hire someone or paint it myself. Historically, I have painted the house. Since we would paint it the same colors, I would just paint it in sections and usually drag it out over a couple of years. With three new colors that was no longer an option. It all needed to be done at once.
Points of consideration
Skills/Expertise – I painted in college so it is one of the rare home improvement skills I have. Although, I was probably going to be spraying a majority of my house/garage and I have never done that before. The carpentry work/repairs that needed to be done prior to painting the house was going to be hired out regardless of who painted the house. I have marginal carpentry skills.
Time – For me to paint the house myself I estimated that it was probably going to take five to seven days. The house needed to be scraped, sanded, primed, and painted (two coats). News flash – summer is short in Minnesota. Did I really want to spend a week of it painting my house?
Desire – Certain tasks I hate doing, regardless of my ability to do them. I am pretty sure my family had no interest in me being crabby for a week.
Cost – I needed to understand what my costs were. Not only for what it would cost to have someone else to do it, but also what were the costs if I was going to need to take some PTO for doing the work myself.
What I determined was that I knew I was fully capable of painting my house, I could make the time, and I didn’t think I would become too crabby (assuming nothing went drastically wrong during the process). It simply came down to cost. I went to Angie’s List and solicited a couple of painters for estimates. Just as I expected, good painters cost money. I have hired less-expensive painters and I have been very disappointed in the quality of their work. The good news is that we had the money. The bad news is that our savings account has seen its share of uses this past year – oven fire, hail damage -both house and a car, couple major car repairs.
I am fortunate to work in an industry that has been pretty strong the last few years (Information Technology Consulting). However, with the market continuing to wobble along, we decided to not pull another large chunk of money out of savings. I have spent the last week painting my house.
The process I used for making this decision had me thinking. What decision-making process do I use at work for tasks/projects if I should “do-it-yourself”? I don’t think I have a consistent process. It is usually on a case-by-case basis. I should probably have a consistent process. Do you have a process that you use at work?
