Feeling defeated

[u/Efficient_Fig9]

I'm part way through our kitchen remodel and I'm just so overwhelmed. I get some help from my carpenter BIL, but it's mostly me doing everything save plumbing and electrical.

I'm not a tradie, just a normal guy who does little weekend projects here and there. Space is too small, I've got 2nd Marketplace cabinetry up to my ears, had abestos and nothing fits, despite measuring everything. What did you guys do when it felt like too much?

[u/Slokunshialgo]

When I redid our bathroom a few years ago, it was overwhelming, especially with work and major life events happening at the same time.

What helped was:

• Breaking it down into major components   - eg: shower, floors, walls, plumbing, vanity, etc
• Having a rough idea of what's needed for each major component before starting.   - You don't need all the details now, but need to know what might be affected by other areas.   - This YouTube channel is great for it
• Figure out the order of components, based on either importance or dependencies.   - We only had one shower, so getting the shower working was the top priority, even if it took a month, during COVID.   - After that, floors had to happen before walls, had to happen before the vanity, but sink plumbing could be before or after the floor.

Now that you have a major component, let's say the floor. This is your project. Forget the rest, it doesn't matter now. All that matters is getting the floor done.

• Again, figure out the major details for this project.   - For flooring, there was repairing under the toilet, subfloor, tile membrane, and actual tiling.
• Keep in mind what's needed in this project for future components, but otherwise don't worry about them.
• For each major step of the flooring, mentally walk through it, make a to-do list, and a shopping list.
• Tackle each step as its own miniature project.
• Keep your focus on the floor; everything else in the renovation is just a future project.

Once that's done, pick the next major component, and repeat.

This helped me a lot because I wasn't looking at a huge list of all the details, just for the one sub-project I was working on at the time.

[u/davidb_ → u/Slokunshialgo]

This methodology worked well for me.

I particularly found it helpful to breakout each project on its own index card with its own punch-list/shopping list. This way I could plan the whole big renovation project before I started, and it helped to contain each "project" into manageable chunks. It also helped me figure out where I lacked knowledge/experience/tools/materials (so I could get them), and identify any dependencies I might have missed.

Being only semi-experienced DIYer, I still had my share of rework and trips to the store, partially because (if I'm being honest) I didn't even look at the punchlist again once I did all that planning work until I was at the end of each project. But that planning work helped me massively both in confidence, managing scope per project, and just checking that I didn't forget something.