I’m no licensed plumber or electrician but I pride myself on the fact that I am able to accomplish a lot of the work on my remodels myself. Yes, women can be involved in the labor on a home too!! At the beginning I worked with very low budgets but my high expectations forced me to learn to accomplish things on my own in order to get the custom look I envisioned. “Champagne taste on a beer budget”, as they say. My husband, who is a licensed plumber & excellent carpenter, and I have been a team while working on our own homes for the last 8 years, which helped to improve my confidence in my real estate and design career. I can walk through a home with a buyer and confidently talk about renovations and how to accomplish them. My Kitchen and Bath Design education is very important but having a designer or realtor who has personally experienced doing the work is just as important!

Some tools are easier than others to work with; paint brushes, paint sprayers, wet tile saws…….all easy to learn but I have always struggled with the big, heavy cordless drills. On my recent home remodel I was removing ALL of the kitchen cabinet doors and hinges to be prepared for paint. I thought my arms were going to fall off from holding the heavy drill above my head for that long period of time to remove the over head cabinets. Good work out, but frustrating when you are trying to get a job done! Same thing when installing custom blinds and curtains, major shoulder work out! Sooooo for my 30th birthday this year my husband got me 2 lightweight, cordless drills. They are small and easy to handle, exactly what I needed!

This small little guy is a Makita impact driver which has a significant increase in torque and better control than the average drill. Pros: Less likely to strip the screw head, can drive very long screws with little effort, this drill does all the work!

The other is a Makita traditional cordless screwdriver. This one doesn’t have as much torque but is still a necessary tool when working on more fragile items such as fancy brass

hardware. This one works fine for my husband but the other drill would cut back on how hard he has to work to drive screws; less work equals less fatigue.

I look forward to having more and more opportunities in the future to expand my renovation skills and share that with you. Give yourself a pat on the back if you aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty!