We did 29 projects in our Florida house ourselves and spent about $23,000 on materials. A contractor would have charged about $100,000 for the same work. When we sold, that difference stayed in our pocket: about $133,000 doing it ourselves, versus about $56,000 if we had hired it all out.
We bought our house in 2017 for $187,000. We sold it in June 2026 for $377,000.
That looks like a $190,000 win, and it is the number everybody asks about. It is also not what hit our bank account. So I sat down with the closing numbers and every project we did in that house, and I asked the question I get asked more than any other: was doing it all ourselves actually worth it?
Short answer, yes. By about $78,000. Here is the whole breakdown, including the parts that are not flattering.
What We Actually Walked Away With
This is the closing, line by line.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sale price | $377,000 |
| Agent commissions (3% + 3%) | ($22,620) |
| Solar panel loan payoff | ($22,000) |
| Mortgage payoff and closing costs | ($175,808) |
| What we walked away with | $156,571 |
Quick tip if you have solar panels on a loan: that loan gets paid off at closing, and it comes straight out of what you take home. We were told our solar loan was transferrable but then our loan got sold to another company that didn’t allow transfers. So we had to pay it off in full at closing.
Why our mortgage was still that high after nine years
If you are looking at that mortgage line and wondering how we owed almost what we paid for the house, here is the reason why. We went into forbearance during COVID in 2020. Afterward we took a loan modification with a lower rate, and it reset our mortgage back to year one.
Restarting a mortgage means you go back to the part where almost every payment is interest. So for the last several years we were paying every month and barely touching the balance.
A lot of people went into forbearance in 2020, and I have never heard anybody talk about what it did to their loan afterward. So I am saying it. It also means our gain did not come from slowly paying off the house. It came from two places: what the market did, and what we did to the house with our own hands.
Every Project We Did, DIY vs Hiring It Out
Over nine years we did 29 projects in that house. Two full bathrooms, new floors upstairs and in the guest room, a custom built-in fireplace, new closets, an updated laundry room, a new sliding glass door, turf on the patio, and a lot of paint.
Here is what each one approximately cost us in materials, next to what I think a contractor would have charged for the same job.
| # | Project | DIY (materials) | Hired out | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Entryway closet | $375 | $1,800 | $1,425 |
| 2 | Entryway shiplap wall + custom table | $225 | $1,000 | $775 |
| 3 | Custom built-in fireplace | $1,300 | $6,500 | $5,200 |
| 4 | Full interior house paint | $1,000 | $6,000 | $5,000 |
| 5 | Linen closet makeover | $225 | $900 | $675 |
| 6 | Guest bathroom renovation | $4,000 | $15,000 | $11,000 |
| 7 | Brick accent wall in the hallway | $350 | $1,800 | $1,450 |
| 8 | Under stair storage | $450 | $2,500 | $2,050 |
| 9 | New stair treads | $1,050 | $3,000 | $1,950 |
| 10 | Kitchen cabinet repaint | $250 | $4,000 | $3,750 |
| 11 | Kitchen tile paint | $175 | $800 | $625 |
| 12 | Laundry room makeover | $1,050 | $4,500 | $3,450 |
| 13 | Painted patio | $275 | $1,200 | $925 |
| 14 | Guest room desk and shelves | $500 | $2,500 | $2,000 |
| 15 | Guest bedroom closet remodel | $350 | $2,000 | $1,650 |
| 16 | Guest bedroom LVP floor | $550 | $1,800 | $1,250 |
| 17 | Roman clay walls, guest bedroom | $350 | $1,800 | $1,450 |
| 18 | Upstairs LVP floor | $2,750 | $9,000 | $6,250 |
| 19 | Picture frame moulding | $175 | $1,200 | $1,025 |
| 20 | Custom craft desk nook | $425 | $2,500 | $2,075 |
| 21 | Secret attic storage | $350 | $1,800 | $1,450 |
| 22 | Master bedroom built-in closet | $650 | $4,500 | $3,850 |
| 23 | Sliding barn door | $375 | $1,000 | $625 |
| 24 | Master bathroom renovation | $4,000 | $15,000 | $11,000 |
| 25 | Epoxy sink top | $250 | $1,200 | $950 |
| 26 | Popcorn ceiling removal, hallway and kitchen | $150 | $1,500 | $1,350 |
| 27 | New sliding glass door | $538 | $2,000 | $1,462 |
| 28 | New window | $500 | $1,200 | $700 |
| 29 | Patio turf | $800 | $3,000 | $2,200 |
| Total | $23,438 | $101,000 | $77,562 |
About $23,000 to do it ourselves. About $100,000 to hire it out. The two bathrooms alone were $8,000 for us and about $30,000 for a contractor.
How I got these numbers (and where they are fuzzy)
I want to be upfront here, because a number like $100,000 deserves some skepticism.
- Real numbers: both bathrooms ($4,000 each), the whole house paint (about $1,000) and the sliding glass door ($538).
- Estimates: everything else on the DIY side. I did not track receipts for nine years of projects, so these are my best estimates for what each one cost.
- The contractor side: priced from 2026 cost guides at the middle of the normal range for each job.
- The one real quote we ever got: after a leak, a contractor quoted about $30,000 to repair the damage to a bathroom, the entryway closet, the guest room closet and the drywall. My contractor estimates for those same projects add up to about $19,000. So if anything, the hired out column is on the low side.
If you track your own receipts better than I did, your numbers will be tighter than mine. I would still bet the gap looks about the same.
What We Kept: DIY vs Hiring It Out
The sale is the same either way. Same house, same price, same closing costs. The only thing that changes is what the projects cost.
| DIY | Hired out | |
|---|---|---|
| What we walked away with | $156,571 | $156,571 |
| Spent on the 29 projects | ($23,438) | ($101,000) |
| What we kept | about $133,000 | about $56,000 |
If we had hired it all out, we still would have come out ahead. Just with less than half as much.
One thing I do not want to oversell. That $133,000 is not profit. Part of what you walk away with at closing is your own down payment and the mortgage payments you made coming back to you. The comparison between the two columns is the point. Doing the work ourselves left us about $78,000 better off, on the exact same sale.
For what it is worth, $50,000 of what we walked away with went straight into our Japan fund. That is half of our goal from one house.
What It Actually Cost Us
Here is the part DIY content usually skips. That $78,000 was not free.
It cost us nine years of weekends. It cost a few projects I would not do again. And when my brother, who is a realtor, scored every project in the house for resale value, he told me to my face that at least one of them made the house worth less. You can see how he scored all of them here.
So is DIY worth it? If you like doing it, and you are patient enough to learn as you go, yes, absolutely. On our house it was the difference between selling well and selling okay. But if you would hate every one of those weekends, a contractor’s price is also buying you your time back. That is a fair trade too.
My verdict: start with the projects that have the biggest gap between DIY and hiring out. For us that was the bathrooms, the floors and the built-ins. And paint your own walls. It is the easiest place to start.
Questions I Got Asked a Lot
Is DIY worth it if you are going to sell your house?
On our house it was. We spent about $23,000 on materials doing 29 projects ourselves. Hiring the same work out would have cost about $100,000. Since the sale price was the same either way, that $78,000 difference is money we kept instead of paying contractors. The trade is your time. Ours took nine years of weekends.
How much does it cost to hire out a bathroom remodel?
We did two bathrooms for about $4,000 each in materials. Hiring each one out would likely run around $15,000, which is the low end of what a full bathroom remodel costs in South Florida. The bathrooms were the biggest gap of all 29 projects.
Did you make a profit selling your house?
We sold for $377,000 after buying for $187,000, and we walked away with $156,571 after the agents, our solar loan, the mortgage and closing costs. I would not call all of that profit, because part of it is our own down payment and the mortgage we paid over the years coming back to us. What I can say is that doing the work ourselves left us with about $78,000 more than hiring it out would have.
Why was your mortgage payoff so high after nine years?
We went into COVID forbearance, and the loan modification afterward reset our mortgage back to the beginning. For the last several years, most of every payment went to interest instead of paying down the loan. That is why almost none of our gain came from paying off the mortgage.
How did you figure out what a contractor would have charged?
Everything on the contractor side is priced from 2026 cost guides at the middle of the normal range for each job. The one real quote we had was about $30,000 to repair leak damage to a bathroom, two closets and the drywall, which is more than my estimates for those same projects. Some of our material costs are estimates too, since I did not track every receipt for nine years. Treat these as ballpark numbers, not quotes.
The Question I Still Cannot Stop Thinking About
Would we have come out even further ahead if we had never bought this house at all, and just rented and invested the difference? That is a harder question, and it needs real numbers on both sides. I am working on it, and it is the next post.
Read Next
- All 25 of our DIY projects, scored by a realtor for what they did to the sale price
- What to fix before selling a house: my realtor’s 7 rules
- How we replaced our sliding patio door ourselves for $538
- 22 questions to ask a realtor before you list your house
Until next time,
Happy DIY-ing!
-Selene
