These days, perhaps more than ever before, it is popular to handle home improvement projects on a DIY – or do-it-yourself – basis. The appeal, of course, is the opportunity to save money over having to pay for professional installation. When you do-it-yourself, you can complete the job just as you want while saving hundreds or thousands of dollars in the process. What’s not to like?
It is true – handling projects on a DIY basis is a great option for many jobs. Assuming you have a little bit of skill around the house, and you have the right tools on hand, there are plenty of jobs that you can handle without the help of a pro. However, one of the best skills that a DIY-er needs to possess is the ability to know when to call in the experienced hand of a professional. It is a mistake to take on a project on a DIY basis when you don’t have the skills, tools, or experience to get the job done right. In most cases, that concept is going to apply to stone installation. If you are in the process of having stone counters or other surfaces added to your home, save yourself a huge headache and have the product professionally installed by an experienced team.
Stone is Heavy
Let’s start with the biggest, and most-obvious point of all with regard to this discussion – stone is heavy. Really heavy. If you are going to try to install your new counter on your own, you will need to have a plan for how you can move the product into place. You will need to have friends who are willing to help, and those friends should probably have an active gym membership as well. With a professional team, you will have installers who are used to moving around large pieces of stone on a daily basis. These installers will have the strength to handle the job, and they will have the gear to do so safely. An accident while trying to lift your stone can not only damage the expensive counter, but it can also injure someone (potentially in a serious manner). Saving some money on installation simply isn’t worth the risk you will take on by trying to do this yourself.
Getting It Right
A quality stone counter is a significant investment – and it is not one that you want to get wrong. When you attempt to install the stone yourself, you will need to make sure that you get the positioning right down to the smallest of margins. If not, the mistake is going to be obvious and the counter will never look as good as you had hoped. Again, this is where experience comes into the picture. A team of installers who know what they are doing – and who have done it over and over again – are far more likely to get this right than you are when doing it for the first time.
Working with Cabinets and Irregularities
Installing stone counter tops is more of an art than a science. Why? Because no two homes, and no two kitchens are exactly the same. Your kitchen is probably not as perfectly square as you think, meaning there will be some adjustments necessary when the stone goes in to make everything look great. Unfortunately, you might not know how to make those adjustments and ‘tweaks’ if you try to do the job yourself. With a pro on your side, however, you will have access to all of the tricks of the trade. Experienced installers have dealt with plenty of problems over the years, so they know how to get the job done even when things are a little bit less than perfect.
There are plenty of projects in and around your home that are a perfect fit for the DIY treatment – but the installation of a stone counter isn’t one of them. Work with a professional team, such as the team here at Stone World, and you can have confidence and peace of mind that the job is going to get done right the first time.
