Why I love do-it-yourself home improvement projects, and why I should almost always hire a professional instead

I like ripping things apart and putting them back together. As I'm sure my dad could tell you, as a kid I would delight in tearing into a spent piece of electronic gadgetry in a vain attempt to decipher its innards. I built computers in my early teens (not that hard, really - a very overrated skill), and starting building software professionally a few years later. I am a big fan of buying $200 guitars, gutting them clean and installing $500 worth of electronics, leaving only the original wood of the body and neck. I can't leave my cars alone, either - my beloved '97 BMW M3 has been tinkered with in too many ways, particularly the stereo and suspension.

But a house is just ever-so-much more permanent and expensive than all of those things. And consequently, big home improvement projects are more intimidating. But for reasons I can't explain, I hate paying people to do something I can theoretically do myself. Sure, it might take me 3 weeks instead of the 3 hours in which a licensed, bonded, and insured contractor could accomplish the task. But what's the fun in that?

Are my time, higher blood pressure, and reduced lumbar vertebrae life expectancy worth it? I mean, after all, I have an extra lumbar vertebra, along with a solid 20% of the likely-ignorant population. Perhaps that common sense gene (you know, the one that sits on the other leg of that second X chromosome we dudes don't possess) would come in handy next time, right before I dive wallboard-saw-first into my hallway computer niche.

Let's see - I obviously need to run some electrical, some RG6, some Cat5e. Clearly a wireless network isn't going to cut it, and I can't use an extension cord to reach around the corner. Of course not; that would be silly.

So over the last few weeks, I've been installing a few extra electrical outlets, a wired Gigabit network, some cable TV outlets, and some wall cabinets. I've cut some 30 square holes in the wall, lost every last bit of my right index fingertip's skin to a pair of 12" needle nose pliers, shocked myself to Tennessee a couple times (may have been Kentucky - wasn't paying much attention at the time), partially succeeded in drilling a hole in my other index finger, and had two wall cabinets rip themselves and their drywall anchors right out of the wall. Naturally, both finger bloodying episodes and the cabinet tumbling incidents came to pass literally within 5 minutes of being done with the respective projects.

So maybe next time I'll call a pro to spare myself the trouble. But then again, I always forget my home improvement history, and am therefore doomed to repeat it, as the fella says. I'm convinced that the same cells that control my brain's DIY memory are responsible for healing my ailing DIY body parts, and they eventually forget all when the bruises, scrapes, abrasions, and subluxations subside.

Oh well, I better stop typing - I need to go start replacing doorknobs.