I was joking around with @riverflows who was calling me "un-Australian" (the second worst insult, just behind being called a kiwi), because of my fear of power tools. It didn't help matters that I added I also don't drink beer. It really is no wonder I am not in Australia. However, Fins are also a big beer drinking country and, they tend to be able to do a lot of their own renovation work.
Unlike in Australia, apparently.
When I came to Finland, I was pretty impressed at how many people had quite literally built their own house. Yes, it helps that many of them are built from wood, but the volume of work Finns did was pretty impressive. Pretty much everyone building a house or renovating one, would get home from work after five, and then spend the next four or five hours working on their home. For around two years. Things move slower when doing it yourself.
I grew up in a house that needed a huge amount of maintenance work done, but there was no one to actually do it, as my parents were born incapable of doing renovation work. As a result, things just got left undone, to fall apart over time - because it was too expensive to have someone come and do the work for us.
Once settled in Finland though and especially after I bought my first apartment, I started learning how to do all manner of things, from laying new floorboards and installing sinks, to hanging kitchen cabinets. While I might not be great at it, I am proud that I have the balls to do the hard work.
The sweat equity paid off.
The sale of the first apartment, paid for the deposit and renovation of the second apartment, with the work mostly done by me as well. The sale of the second apartment paid for the deposit and some of the renovation on our house. If I had paid professionals to do the work I did, this couldn't have happened. There would have still been some profit, but the majority of it would have been eaten up by tradespeople. Like elsewhere - tradies aren't cheap.
Because of the conversation yesterday, I found it quite amusing to read in an Australian news service today that a young couple in their early twenties who had just bought their first home, gave up painting the inside of it themselves - and hire professionals instead. They gave up because it was just too much work.
Painting is the easiest part there is.
But it takes patience.
There are some more uncomfortable bits, like painting a ceiling, but the "difficulty level" as far as renovation work goes, it is like making an omelette - A little harder than boiling eggs, but not much. And because of this, it is an easy area to save large amounts of money. But as said - it takes patience. It takes patience to prepare the surfaces, and tape the edges, and paint in the corners and all the rest of it.
Many of the young don't have the patience.
They are a generation of having whatever they want delivered on-demand, and it shows in their consumer behaviour and their work ethic. They will be the first to complain about the cost of getting into a house these days, and how easy it was for earlier generations, but when they have a chance to save money by doing for themselves - they hire professionals. Professionals do it better, do it faster, and they cost much more.
And while the costs in the grand scheme of things might not seem significant in comparison to the cost of the house itself, in a few years all of those costs add up when selling and looking for something larger, or in a better location, because those savings become part of the deposit for the next house.
Is sweat equity out of fashion?
But it isn't just the financial return potential that matters here. It is also about the sense of ownership that comes with actually doing some of the work involved. But a lot of people these days don't do much for themselves at all, as their meals are ordered, their groceries are delivered, and a suite of apps tells them where to be, what to watch, and who they are meant to be.
I am sure there are exceptions in that age group who are taking the responsibility on their shoulders to learn how to build and therefore maintain their homes, but it seems to be a dying breed. And unwillingness to do the work is an interesting antipathy for a group hellbent on defining themselves as individuals. What is bought doesn't make an individual - an individual is in what a person does.
Doing something, is better than doing nothing.
I think the younger generations, with all of their challenges and complaints, still need to look in the mirror and reflect on what they can do for themselves. Because I think they are undermining their experience by overvaluing themselves at the ideological level, undervaluing themselves at the practical layer - the place where life is actually lived.
Paint the house. It might be hard, it might not be as good as the professionals would have done it, and you are likely to get messy. but, it will help your home be yours, and, you will have memories and stories to tell from your experiences.
Everyone seems to just want to pay their way to the end.
The journey is dead.
Taraz
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