Hire a contractor for anything structural, anything requiring a permit, and anything you’d have to buy a single-use tool to do. DIY the rest if you have the time, because the labour savings on cosmetic work are real and the risk of getting it wrong is low.
The decision in one table
| Task | DIY time (avg) | DIY cost | Contractor cost | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Painting a room | 1-2 days | €180-400 | €600-1,200 | DIY, unless ceilings are high or walls need heavy repair |
| Assembling flatpack furniture | 2-6 hours | €0 extra | €60-150 | DIY |
| Installing a light fitting (existing circuit) | 1-2 hours | €0-50 | €90-200 | DIY if comfortable with a switched-off circuit |
| Laying floating floor (LVT/laminate) | 1-2 days | €30-60/m² | €55-90/m² | DIY if the subfloor is flat and level |
| Tiling a bathroom | 3-5 days | €25-45/m² | €70-120/m² | Contractor, unless you’ve tiled before |
| Rewiring a room or new circuit | Do not DIY | — | €400-1,200 per circuit | Contractor, always |
| Moving a non-structural wall | Do not DIY alone | — | €1,500-4,000 | Contractor, with a check on whether it’s load-bearing |
| Kitchen cabinet installation | 2-4 days | €0 extra | €800-2,000 | Depends on skill; flatpack kitchens are DIY-able |
The four questions that actually decide it
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Does it need a permit or building control sign-off? If yes, hire a contractor even if you could physically do the work, because uninsured or unsigned-off work becomes a real problem at resale.
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Is there a failure mode that’s dangerous, not just ugly? Bad paint is ugly. A bad gas connection is dangerous. Anything in the second category goes to a licensed trade regardless of your confidence.
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What’s your actual hourly rate doing something else? If a professional charges €200 for a 4-hour job and your own time is worth more than €50/hour doing anything else, DIY isn’t actually saving you money, it’s costing you time you’d rather have back.
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Have you done this exact task before, badly, and learned from it? First attempts at tiling, tricky paint techniques, or built-in carpentry usually look like first attempts. That’s fine for a shed, less fine for a kitchen you’ll look at for a decade.
Where the “DIY is cheaper” math breaks down
DIY calculations usually skip:
- Tool cost. A tile cutter, a decent drill, or a wallpaper steamer bought for one job often costs more than the labour saved, unless you’ll use it again.
- Rework. A contractor’s quote includes fixing their own mistakes. Your DIY budget rarely includes a redo.
- Time value during a phase. If DIY stretches a two-week phase into a two-month one, see the phased renovation guide for what that costs in living-with-mess time, which is real even if it’s not on an invoice.
A middle path: DIY the plan, hire the execution
You don’t have to choose DIY or contractor for the whole project. A common and effective split:
- Do the design and material selection yourself. Use a tool like Homie to test layouts, colours, and finishes on your actual room before spending anything, since a designer or contractor charges for this stage too.
- Hire the trade work: electrical, plumbing, tiling, flooring.
- DIY the finishing layer: painting, styling, hanging art, arranging furniture.
This gets professional results on the parts where mistakes are expensive, and keeps the parts where mistakes are cheap and reversible in your own hands. If you’re specifically deciding between doing the whole room yourself versus calling someone, the how to redesign any room method walks through what a DIY-only version of that process looks like end to end.
Try it yourself
Before you commit to either path, run your room through Homie’s Room Redesign to see what a finished result could look like, then use the Cost Estimate add-on to see roughly what it would cost either way. Having both numbers in front of you, DIY materials versus a full quote, makes the decision above concrete instead of theoretical. Try it on Homie.