Sustainable to Regenerative Living

There are lot of tasks or jobs in and around the house that requires help from the professional for which we will be paying quiet an amount. These tasks can be done by our self, if we put in a little effort and time. You need to choose only those jobs that can be done without much help from professional and takes little extra effort and time for you. There are advantages and disadvantages of DIY tasks.

Advantages are you can learn on the Task and it will be a life long skill if you master it. Also in some cases it can become a new profession for you. It will help you to make and save some extra money.

Disadvantages are while learning and doing the task’s you might do lot or few damages but not all ways, Little damage is fine as part of new learning skills.

Few years ago I had bought a RO water purifier and I was new to the installing the water purifier. After few input from good friends and researching online I ordered a RO purifier which was easier to install. I need to spend four hours of my weekend to install the water purifier and it is worth it. Before having the in house water purifier we were buying the bottled water and spending quiet an amount of money and also creating lot of plastic bottle waster into the environment. And I also saved on the installing cost. All the cost you saved here should be put into work by investing the money wisely towards a sustainable and early retirement.

Recently one of the other job I did was painting my garage, I have never done a painting job before but had little knowledge. Initially I was not optimistic of doing the paint job myself, I was in a dilemma that should I hire a professional to do the job, After doing the cost estimation of the painting work, I figured it out that the cost of the labor is high when compared to the painting material and accessories so then I decided as it was garage room it was okay to do few mistakes while learning on new paint job so I decided to do the garage painting myself as a DIY job.

First task was to measure the total area to be painted, based on the total area to be painted you can know how much paint is required. If the area to be painted has never been painted you need to include the cost of the primer paint also. Next is to prepare the wall and ceiling to be painted by making sure the surface is smooth and clean from insects and spider webs. you can have absolute smooth or semi smooth surface. Next get the tools and the material required to start the paint job. Initially I bought a paint kit which included most of the tools for the paint job, most of the tools are one time investment. later on I also needed few more paint brush and rollers based on my online research. Also I considered to use paint which is environment friendly and easy to clean and safe on plants.

Try to do the paint jobs in the summer when the weather outside is warm and you can keep the doors and windows open while doing the paint job. It also helps in drying the painted wall and ceiling sooner. First I focused on the painting the ceiling, used a painters tape to tape around the fixtures like lights, plugs and switches. Then used a plastic sheet to cover the floor so that it does not make floor messy. I also used 5 feet long painting stick to paint the ceiling and also the higher walls by standing on the floor. Even though I was doing the paint job for first time I wanted to paint the ceiling and walls with two different colors, usually most people go with same color to make the task easier. This I did to learn how to paint the edges near to the ceiling and the wall basically called cutting the edges in paint job. I purchased a small 2 inch short handle brush to easily hold and paint near the wall and ceiling edges and also short corners between the window and door trims.

Other DIY job I also did was installing the slat wall that is used hang on the stuff on to the wall and also looks good. The product I used is made of 90 % recycled material.

The point here is that you can start doing DIY tasks and you can reduce substantial amount of money which you can put towards your saving and make it work for you. By doing this most of the time you are learning new skills and also increasing your savings.

Start doing DIY tasks and start saving and progress towards sustainable living.