Homeowner shares the reality of trying a DIY home renovation hack

An Australian homeowner who renovated her outdoor deck wished she had ‘left it to the professionals’. 

Steph, from Sydney, had seen several DIY videos on TikTok and was convinced she too could do it herself. 

But when the project took an entire week to complete, she admitted it wasn’t as easy as it seems. 

‘This is the story about how this app (TikTok) made me believe I could be a tiler,’ Steph said in a video.  

‘I kept seeing videos like this I thought “surely I could do that, that doesn’t look so tricky to do”. So we got to work smashing the tiles and placing them around the pergola for where we thought they would look good.’ 

The pergola originally looked dull and needed to be modernised. 

Once Steph and her husband found the perfect placings for each tile, they started to glue each piece down, which Steph said ‘took forever’ and was ‘such a s*** job’.  

‘Eventually we got them all glued down, already we were at two days full worth of work, then we started grouting,’ she said. 

The pergola originally looked dull and needed to be modernised (left). After seven days the flooring was complete, and while Steph was happy with the end result it was time consuming to do (right)

About a third of the way through the project, the pair ran out of grout and couldn’t find the type the needed ‘in the whole of Sydney’. 

‘Eventually we found it, finished grouting, and we had to start cleaning. It took us a whole day so already we’re at four days of solid work here,’ Steph continued. 

‘Once it was clean we then had to seal it, which was another half a day’s worth of work.’

Finally after seven days the flooring was complete, and while Steph was happy with the end result it was time consuming to do.

‘It looks beautiful, but it was a solid week’s worth of work and we killed ourselves trying to do it, I’d leave it to the professionals,’ she said. 

The TikTok video has since been viewed more than 180,000 times and attracted over 10,000 likes, with many saying the end result looks ‘beautiful’. 

‘Looks fantastic, and you saved a bunch of money,’ one person wrote, another added: ‘Unreal! Looks so so good!!! Love the honest review on the DIY approach.’

A third added: ‘That’s not bad time wise! It looks amazing. But look at you, you are a tiler, and a pretty great one even though it was full on.’

‘Great work! It would be easier to leave it to the professionals but I bet you learnt heaps and saved heaps and you can use your new skills else where,’ another said.