DIY Moldings Installation – Should You Do It?

The do-it-yourself approach to home improvement has become as common as apple pie – you won’t find a soul that haven’t tried it, and quite a lot like to dabble in it on regular bases. It’s easy to see why – people love doing things with their own hands, it leaves them with a sense of accomplishment. It’s a great opportunity to learn new skills, as well, and not to forget – everything that helps save some money is more than welcome.

Still, sometimes it’s best to leave the work to the professionals, especially if it’s a more expensive endeavor, or something where mistakes can produce grave consequences. And installing moldings might not lead to a disaster if done wrong, but it can make you waste your time and money.

Here’s how it goes – you can buy moldings in any home improvement store. They don’t come very expensive, because they are made of cheaper materials, like polyurethane or PVC. Still, both of these materials will need to be painted, and each of them comes with a set of drawbacks of their own. PVC is hard to paint, and it doesn’t allow for ornamental molding, and polyurethane is easy to dent. Then again, they don’t shrink or change their shape in humidity, so that’s another plus.

However, if you want to go for a more expensive material, like wood or plaster, the difficulty to install goes up with the cost. While wood is notoriously hard to cut and install in a proper way, not to mention that you have to take shrinkage and swelling into account when doing it, plaster is heavy and very easy to crack, and it requires a layer of fresh plaster when installing. And you really don’t want to change your wooden moldings too often, or crack a piece of plaster molding, do you?

So the bottom line would be – DIY is fine, as long as you use inexpensive materials that are easy to handle, and you don’t expect a grand result. Also, it would be a good idea to start your DIY placement of moldings in a side room – no reason to ruin the living room experimenting. And if you want a classier, better, look – call the people who do it for a living.