The DIY Project Planner We Wish We Had 20 Years Ago!

This year, Andrew and I will be celebrating our 20th anniversary! That also means that it’s been almost 20 years since we bought our first house together. Seems like a lifetime ago, and yet not all that long ago…

I wish you could have seen that first house! It had a different floral wallpaper in every room, popcorn ceilings, turquoise tile in the hall bathroom, green shag carpet in the living room, and pink tile in the kitchen with green linoleum…it was a fixer upper to be sure! Just look at this picture of the kitchen in our first house, taken right before we moved in. Makes me chuckle every time I see it, because I know what it ended up looking like, and it was a night and day difference!

Since we spent most of our savings on buying the house, we had very little money left to spend on bringing the house up to the current decade, so we had no other choice than to dive into the world of DIY. I remember those early days, trying to figure out how to do things, and what tools we needed. Keep in mind, this was way before the days of plentiful blog tutorials and YouTube videos. We had no idea what we were doing most of the time, and were definitely winging it. Those early projects were a good test for our marriage. 🙂

Andrew and I just recently were out on a walk and laughing about one particular early DIY project. We were working on replacing all of the electrical outlets in the house, which was a pretty big job. It was taking FOREVER! About halfway through, we decided we needed to buy a new tool to make the job easier. So, Andrew ran out to Home Depot and I stayed behind working on replacing the next electrical outlet. By the time he got home, it was dark outside, and dark in the house, too. After all, we had turned the power off to do the electrical work.. He found me sitting in the hallway, crying tears of frustration, with blisters on my fingers, and a flashlight in my mouth, still trying to replace the same frickin’ outlet. I wish I could go back and give that younger version of me a big hug! She just needed better tools, better planning, and a little more practice, 

It probably won’t surprise you to know that one of the biggest lessons we learned during those early days wasn’t just how to use our power tools (though also very important). Nope, the biggest lesson was the importance of planning our projects upfront. The projects where we planned ahead, prepared, and communicated about what needed to be done were the projects that were the most successful. The others, well…they didn’t break us, but some came pretty close!

Since then, we’ve become veteran DIY pros. There isn’t a project we can’t handle, a power tool we don’t own, and we know how to plan a project from start to finish. Over the years, we naturally developed a planning process that works great for us. A couple of weeks ago, I sat Andrew down and we talked about how we could share our process with the world and help someone who was just like us all of those years ago. I got to work on capturing our ideas, and the result?

We’ve created a DIY Project Planner!

Want to know the best part? This awesome planner is absolutely FREE! You can grab your FREE copy by clicking on the link below.

​>> GET YOUR DIY PROJECT PLANNER <<​

Whether you’re already playing in the world of DIY, or just starting out, this planner will help you organize your thoughts, plan your tasks, identify your supplies, and work through your budget. It’s the planner we WISH we would have had 20 years ago!  We hope you enjoy it, we hope it helps ease some frustrations, and we hope it helps you fall in love with DIY, like we did!