It's the Summer of DIY Projects --- America's least- handy homeowners pick up power tools

 

“Mira Kepler didn't want to pay a contractor $10,000 to turn the smelly, mice-ridden chicken coop in her backyard into an office for her husband. So she checked out an electrical wiring manual from the library and got to work.

 

The abandoned coop had plenty of old hay and mice nests, but it lacked insulation and windows. Kepler was soon cutting holes and installing light fixtures.

 

In Kepler's rural corner of Oregon and across the country, hiring a contractor is getting so expensive that some of America's least handy homeowners are learning to use power tools. They're spending their days on YouTube, studying local permitting laws and scouring Reddit's hyperactive do-it-yourself forum, whose membership now exceeds the population of Australia.

 

That means more people are buying the wrong tools and materials, failing inspections and testing their physical and emotional limits. Kepler hit rock bottom when she found herself picking at a layer of mud, chicken droppings, feathers and spiderwebs stuck to the coop floor while her 5-month-old child napped.

 

It was a "low point," Kepler said, and the project had just barely begun.

 

Americans rushed to remodel their kitchens and bathrooms during the pandemic, but the years since have been sluggish in the home-improvement market. Economic uncertainty and stubbornly high interest rates have delayed many projects. Many of those willing to forge ahead are doing more of the work themselves.

 

Novices are encountering both triumph and disaster. Daryn Ferreira, who lives in a mobile home in Illinois, wanted to tear down a small closet to create more living space. He took a crowbar to the closet's drywall, bought a saw and got to work installing a new wall-mounted storage unit out of wooden boards.

 

It was raining that day, so when Ferreira heard creaking, he assumed it was the sound of the drizzle outdoors. Then his whole installation came crashing down to the floor. "Oh!," he recalled thinking. "That wasn't the rain."

 

Ferreira cleaned up the mess, tracked down new tools and did it right the second time.

 

When Russell Schafer was taking on a double-car garage project, the contractor arrived at his home in a Maserati, sporting a Cartier bracelet. If that wasn't the deal breaker, the quote was -- nearly $70,000.

 

So the 33-year-old decided to cut out the middleman. He still hired a plumber and an electrician, but assumed the role of general contractor. The plumber failed an inspection due to a water leak.

 

Despite a few hiccups, he likes the savings and sense of pride that come from taking on a job. "For now, and the foreseeable future, I have much more time than money."

 

Jeffrey DiScala moved into a century-old house in Virginia last year and stared down a mountain of tasks: removing trees, installing a paver patio, tilling the lawn, washing the fence.

 

The 44-year-old grant manager didn't have the money to hire someone or the knowledge to do them himself. He started asking ChatGPT. "I've probably spoken more to language learning models in the last two months than to some of my friends," DiScala said.

 

It wasn't a smooth start. DiScala got the wrong-size bricks for his paver patio, and the wrong tools to cut them. But DiScala was pleased with the result.

 

Back in Oregon, Kepler forged ahead on the chicken coop conversion. She found large windows at a store in Portland, but she struggled to fix them to the coop's walls. For weeks, after she put her baby to bed, Kepler would spend hours watching YouTube videos and studying the technical specifications of window manufacturers, strategizing a waterproof design for the installation.

 

Soon, she was playing with the electric. At the library one afternoon, Kepler spotted Black & Decker's electrical wiring manual. "This is what I need," she thought.

 

She failed the first permitting inspection -- and the second one, too. "I tend to have a certain overconfidence," Kepler admitted.

 

Little by little, the coop started to look more like a home office, and with each small feat she felt a sense of pride. "I'm actually succeeding at this," Kepler said, "and making an interesting and functional and beautiful thing."

 

Not everyone is so daring. In Columbus, Ohio, John Clendineng is proud of the spiral staircase railing he recently constructed on his own. But he won't touch the electric. He said that while he values saving on home improvement, "I value my life more."” [1]

 

1. It's the Summer of DIY Projects --- America's least- handy homeowners pick up power tools. Tucker-Smith, Owen.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 25 Aug 2025: A1.