When it comes to getting the garden renovated the thing that puts many homeowners off is the amount which they will need to invest. When it comes to spending money on the home the obvious choice is to invest in the interior first and then think about the external areas of the property. I was very much in this way of thinking until I had a couple of beers with a friend of mine Travis Cadman, who is a professional gardener by trade and loves in the same community as me in Alberta, Canada. At that stage I had been to a lender to explore the possibility of borrowing some money and had all but signed the paperwork for declarations, fraud protection and interest rates off. After chatting with Travis I decided not to borrow money for the garden but to do as much as I could on my own, and here is why I’d recommend it.
Savings and Value
There are really only 2 reasons why people do DIY, either because they want save money or because they enjoy it, my reason was most certainly the former. I was very keen on the idea that you can add value to your property with a neat and tidy garden and instead of dropping $5,000 on the project which a company wanted to charge me, I managed to do it all but on my own for a spend of just $1,600. Because so many people in the USA want homes with gardens, I have been able to add around $3,000 to the property because of the work which I did.
Sense of Real Pride
Something which I hadn’t counted on when I first set out on this project was just how proud I would feel when I was sat in the completed garden. Whenever we are out with the family or with friends, I often catch myself looking around thinking ‘I did that’! This sense of pride is something which you don’t get when you pay for a company to carry out the work and it made all of that hard work worthwhile.
Easier
Working to achieve something in your garden is not easy at all but it certainly isn’t as difficult as many of us would think. The majority of what is required in the garden is hard work as opposed to technical skills and abilities. For the knowledge gaps which you have you can count on a friend or neighbor who knows more like I did, or you can even find a huge amount of online resources which can help you to understand more about the garden.
Project
In total I think that the work which I did in the garden took around 6 months, I was working on it after I got home from work and on as many weekends as possible. This gave me something to really sink my teeth into and having the project really gave me a new lease of life. The benefit of taking a task like this on your own is that you have more energy and you feel far more driven.
Why not think about rolling up your sleeves instead of just paying someone to get your garden completed?
