Home Of The Year judge Siobhán Lam believes there's no harm in giving DIY a go once safety is prioritised, but does admit one of her own past DIY projects has had the potential to ‘ruin her marriage.’
Siobhán, who owns April and the Bear interiors shop in Rathmines, Dublin, and her husband engaged in 'serious DIY' while renovating their home in Dublin's Portobello.
'We would have knocked down walls, pulled down ceilings, created openings for windows, filled multiple skips. We did a lot of physical work ourselves,’ Siobhán told the Irish Mail On Sunday.
As for the couple's own DIY disasters, she remembered a built-in cupboard that didn't fit due to its space being measured incorrectly.
When asked to spill on what happened, Siobhán advised it 'might ruin my marriage' to divulge any more... don't worry Siobhán, we've all been there after trying a project that was a great idea at the time!
All jokes aside, if people are considering a DIY project, Siobhán cautioned that they should 'only do things that you know are safe to do'.
'Safety is obviously number one. When we were working on our home, for instance, we needed to get an RSJ beam put in - a steel joist to support the structure of the room.
'We would have knocked down walls, pulled down ceilings, created openings for windows, filled multiple skips. We did a lot of physical work ourselves.'
'Be safe, but just go for it,' she said. 'What's the worst that can happen if you are being safe? The worst that can happen is that it looks horrendous, and you can take it down or change it.
'I think that's the joy of interiors, and that's the joy of doing it yourself. It's exploring, it's having fun, and taking a chance. So I always encourage everybody to just go for it. Watch YouTube videos and go for it.'
Siobhán's chat with the IMoS comes as a new survey revealed that the kitchen is the room in the house where most botched DIY jobs happen.
A shortage of tradespeople and easy access to instructions online have contributed to a rise in homeowners taking on jobs themselves but new research suggests the kitchen is a bridge too far for most DIY enthusiasts.
A survey conducted by The Panelling Centre found 96 per cent of tradespeople had 'stepped in to fix or complete a homeowner's DIY attempt at fitting a kitchen'.
And with electricity, gas and water to contend with, 40 per cent of tradespeople said 'only some kitchens fitted by homeowners themselves adhere to the correct safety standards'.
Interior design expert Siobhán said this shouldn't put off the growing army of DIY enthusiasts across the country.
'What's the harm, as long as nobody was hurt?' she said. The newest judge on RTÉ's Home Of The Year said it 'depends on the person' as to whether trying to fit a kitchen without experience is a good idea.
'Some people are incredible at DIY, and you wouldn't notice the difference between them doing it themselves and calling in the experts,' she said. 'So it really depends on your skill level.'
And she said it also depends on how much the homeowner cares about imperfections.
'Would you prefer to save a couple of thousand euro and have a slightly off-centre kitchen? That's totally down to the person.
'Maybe they intend on putting in a cheap little kitchen for a few years and then invest in another one a couple of years down the line. It would make sense to just do it themselves, if they have those skills.'
Last month, the MoS reported that DIY shops - and a special DIY course - were recording an increase in female enthusiasts.
Ms Lam agreed people in general are 'getting a bit more adventurous', thanks to the fact that it is 'increasingly difficult to find good tradespeople', and that people have an 'expert at your fingertips' in smartphones.
But she said reports of more women doing DIY are not borne out by her own experience.
'I know more women that are savvy with DIY than men, so I don't know about that at all,' Ms Lam said.
'I work with a lot of women and, seriously, they're very, very DIY savvy. They could put a table together in two minutes flat. So I don't know about it becoming more popular,' she added.
Asked for this season's trends, the interiors expert said colour drenching - painting an entire room, including the ceiling, in one colour - is 'still a big one'.
'And bringing planting inside is always a trend in summer. This summer, with the sun shining outside, we're trying to bring more planting inside, creating a really lush interior feel.
'So lots of lovely fig trees inside and trailing plants and planters.'
