40+ Overambitious DIY-ers That Should’ve Hired A Professional

By Nikita D

This article was originally published on therocketsscience

We all love to try some inexpensive DIY projects and fixes around the house. Whether it is furniture, TV setups, or gym equipment, there are some cases where fixing or building something seems so simple that anyone could do it. And with those lengthy manuals and a plethora of posts online with tips, sometimes with conflicting information, some people find it all too complicated and think, “Hey, I can wing it.”Unless you’re an engineer, you should always be careful with your DIY projects. If not, you might just end up like these frugal folks who thought they’d save a few bucks and not hire a professional. Scroll on to see some DIY fails that are simultaneously cringe-worthy and utterly hilarious.

An Inverted Lightswitch

An electrical job is not as easy as it looks. One would think that it is just a couple of wires welded together, and bam! It works. One such gentleman tried to install a light switch, and one look at the photo can tell you how it went.

It is obviously not even in working condition as it has been installed upside down! Maybe his instruction manual was upside down too. It is a mystery as to how did the light switch end up in this way. He should have called the electrician for help, for sure.

Filling the gaps

One look at this photo, and no further explanation needs to be given. In fact, it speaks for itself, and it is an eyesore to behold from every angle! They have used the killer filler, and it looks like the can exploded all over the tub.

The bath has less bath and more of the filler. Clearly, they are new to fixing plumbing issues and do not know how to handle this stuff correctly. The whole scene looks pretty bad, and he probably should not attempt something like this again.

Hanging a Painting

Honestly, how difficult can hanging a painting be? Somehow, this person tore up the entire wall while trying to find the stud. Since they just kept on going, the whole wall has been destroyed, and all you can see are studs!

At least now they can hang the picture on the wall. We are sure the rest of the family members must be laughing and crying at the same time looking at the state of their home. Maybe, professional help would be best the next time.

A DIY fail

This man decided to assemble the bed himself. That in itself is a big task to undertake, but he thought he could do it. Half a bed later, he is stuck with just the end posts and cannot for the life of anything figure out what he did to the ladder!

Even his dog looks perplexed as to how he managed to do that! This guy definitely needs professional help immediately. He is slowly starting to realize that he needs to undo half of what he has done, free the ladder, and start again. Most likely, his wife has no idea that he threw out the instructions!

Paint, paint everywhere

Imagine that you decided to paint the house and bought two huge cans of paint. Then you put them in the back of your car, but by the time you reached your house – pandemonium had ensued in the car!

There is paint everywhere, and not only has your paint been wasted, but your car is also in a bad state and needs a valet stat. This does not seem like a good omen of the painting work to come.

A DIY Flat-screen TV

Before the flat-screen era, there were television sets in the shapes of boxes. It took people time to adjust to and buy the new flat-screen TVs. Many still had those box TV and refused to get with the times and decided to DIY improvise.

This person who refused to get a new telly thought of an ingenious idea instead. He punched a giant hole in the wall and just wedged the TV in it. From the front, it looked like the TV is a flat-screen- from the back- disaster.

A Chair with no seat

How difficult can a chair be to put together? After all, it just has four legs and a back. Somehow, this person put together an upside-down chair! The chair’s legs are all wrong, and it just looks like a disaster DIY job.

Maybe he was distracted or just not concentrating on the task at hand. This is a total embarrassment to DIYers everywhere. The chair can’t even function as a table or any piece of furniture at all. Somehow, the chair has been rendered useless.

Put the Seat up To this Toilet

A toilet seat has a pretty standard design, and everyone knows which side is which, and it is pretty difficult to screw it up too. But this guy installed the seat cover upside down! He should definitely put the seat up for this one, or else we will not want to imagine the outcome.

Whoever did this was obviously distracted while he was doing the job. Now he will have to suffer the ugly consequences and embarrassment of this inverted toilet seat cover! He should totally just get this fixed ASAP before everyone else in the house sees it.

A Funny DIY Pickup

Everyone has one of those days when they need a pickup car or truck. If you do not own a pickup car, then it becomes quite difficult to carry huge things around the city. This guy did not have a pickup vehicle, so DIY it was.

He literally attached a wooden box at the back of his truck to carry things around. Well, it might work for a while, but this can end badly if he uses this homemade trunk for too long. That looks like a traffic violation waiting to happen.

Recessed lighting on a budget

Have you been to one of those houses where the entire house is shining bright with a warm yellow glow? That is probably because of recessed lighting. This guy also wanted lights all over his house but had budget issues.

He put lights on his ceiling to attempt to replicate the glow from the recessed lighting! Well, for one, this looks pretty bad, and second, not sure if it will give the effect he was going for. At least we can give him an A for effort.

Hang in there

Have you ever had a car accident and one of the car parts has completely fallen off? Well, this is what happened to this guy. Instead of going to get it fixed, he attached a hanger onto the end of the pipe!

Though this is a creative solution, it will definitely not work for too long, if at all. Maybe he did not have access to a mechanic and thought of fixing it himself. Kudos for the on-the-spot thinking! That pipe is just hanging in there.

A welcome treat for guests

A doorbell is an essential part of the house. Without it, you would never know when there is someone at the door. The doorbell here is not working, but instead of calling an electrician, he decided to DIY solve the situation, and only the brave would attempt to visit.

Honestly, this looks pretty dangerous. Half the guests probably just decide to go away and call on someone else rather than shock themselves on arrival. This guy needs to call in a pro and get this remedied. Honestly, this is just a hazard!

A Shower Can

A shower is one of the most important parts of the bathroom. If the showerhead gets blocked or is leaking, you can end up starting the whole day wrong. This guy wanted to shower so badly that he decided to DIY the shower.

Instead of replacing the entire attachment, he decided to install a can with a few holes punched in it! How is that even functional, much less hygienic? This looks like a terrible idea. That shower might just explode on his head.

A Roof over your head

The roof of a house is one of the most overlooked areas, and it can drastically alter the appearance of the whole place. It can cost quite a bit to change the entire roof to look the way you want. This lady wanted a bit of change and had an “ingenious” idea.

Instead of installing new roof tiles, she decided to just put wallpaper over it. The idea in itself is not so bad until the “roof” flies away with a strong gust of wind. Well, as long as the day is non-windy, it should work fine.

A Stairway to Hell

One look at the photo, and you know something terrible must have happened here. This house should come with a warning sign, especially this room. This is a room for someone you really hate! A stairway to hell, literally.

The whole door and stairway thing is an accident waiting to happen and is in desperate need of an architect to revamp this entire scenario. Otherwise, it could lead to a trip to the emergency room and some pretty bad injuries. Honestly, no one should be staying there.

A DIY Phone Wire

Everyone has had this happen to them at least once: an exposed wire of an electrical appliance. It may be your air conditioner, phone wire, or laptop charger. It is really important to replace them as soon as possible or cover up those exposed wires with some electrical tape.

This guy chose another solution. Instead of using electrical tape, he covered his wires with a shoelace and lots of super glue. It might look okay now, but his phone wire is ruined forever. We would not recommend this DIY fix at all.

Foundation Repair 101

A house’s foundation is what makes it sturdy. Someone’s foundation started to buckle underneath the pressure, and deep cracks started to form through the plaster, but instead of getting professional help, they decided to DIY it. This is not really something anyone should be DIYing!

They have just covered over the cracks with some form of filler without addressing the structural issues at the root of this. It looks as bad as it is probably unsafe. The people living in this house should be scared, very scared. It looks like it can collapse at any moment.

Getting stoned

Everyone likes to change things up at home from time to time. Rearranging a piece of furniture or painting the walls are all ways of sprucing up your existing space. This lady wanted to personalize her bathroom and wanted to give it a natural outdoors stone look.

She probably went a bit overboard in the “stone” department. She literally covered every single thing with pebbles! It is all a bit much and probably not very comfortable to use- not to mention impossible to keep clean and hygienic.

Add Medical Costs to your DIY Bills

Sometimes our parents are so hell-bent on hanging up all the Xmas lights that they do not even care if they don’t have the right equipment. Clearly, this man did not have a ladder tall enough to get to where he needed to be.

After stacking up random things on top of each other, he finally managed to reach where he wanted to. However, any passerby may say that this will not end well. A little slip, and this man will come tumbling down!

Kitty Door

Pets are the most lovable creatures, and we pet owners will go to any lengths to make them feel loved and comfortable. Maybe that is why something like “kitty doors” were invented. This lady decided to DIY one for her cat.

She thought, how hard can it be to put a hole in a door? She uninstalled the door, made a kitty door, only to realise she had put the opening on the wrong side. Instead of on the bottom of the door, the kitty door was almost at the ceiling. l It still might work, though- depending on how high kitty can leap!

Women live longer than men..101

Men can make some stupid decisions at some point in their lives. Look at this amateur mechanic who has balanced the car’s entire weight on the telephone line and over a tree branch and is happily working right under the car! At least he has got his red safety shorts on…

Seriously, why anyone would do that is beyond us. This is DIY taken too far and could cause serious injuries. It is a miracle if he makes it out of this scenario in one piece, honestly. Someone stop him, please!

Handling with Care

A door handle is a pretty straightforward tool. But, looking at this picture, it looked like someone got really confused and installed it upside down! The one good part of it is that they will never get locked out.

This DIY definitely did not work out according to their plan, and they will have to start all over again. Most of the jobs around the house seem easy in our heads, but when we go to install it, it’s a whole different story.

Smallest Handrail Ever

Imagine that there is a doorway that leads to a staircase. Now you have thought about installing a handrail to the same, and while you got the job done, it looks a bit odd. One look at this photo, and you will understand why.

Honestly, this was probably installed because someone was just too bored sitting in the house. Inventing work around the home just to keep yourself busy is excellent, but this handrail is of no use at all. Next time, maybe they can just resort to cleaning the house.

A door with no purpose

A door coming off its hinges can be tough to navigate through. In some cases, you might not have access to a carpenter. In these cases, a drill might come in handy. However, it is not as easy as it looks.

Here, they have installed a door upside down! The handle is facing the wrong way completely. Now, if they had paid a little attention, then something like this would not have happened. Professional help is needed to straighten this out.

A DIY water tap

When a water tap stops functioning, then it can be quite troublesome. But, if you are the king of DIYs, then there is nothing a little Do-it-yourself can’t fix. Although, he must have lost the tap’s handle, too, and decided to get creative about it.

Must say, the way he thought of fixing the key on the tap is totally ingenious. And we are pretty sure it works too. Of course, this fix must be temporary and will give away after a while, still, we are impressed by the out-of-the-box problem-solving.

Finding the evasive stud

It is quite embarrassing to call for help if you want to hang just one painting. Though it is easy to do the installation, the hardest part is finding the previously nailed stud where you have to install the nail!

Someone tried to hang the TV on the wall, but clearly, they faltered and that too, not just once! The amount of holes in that wall means that they should probably ask for some help the next time. The good part is they were successful, though!

Fixing the Taillight

A car’s taillight is the quickest and easiest part to break if you are in a car accident. The glass shards spill everywhere, and it becomes difficult and costly to fix the light. This guy came up with a creative solution, though.

Instead of glass, he fixed the light with cling wrap and a basketball, yes, you read that correctly. Although this DIY fix is only ornamental and doesn’t actually do anything to alter the fact that the light is not working, it is pretty clever. We are impressed that anyone would think to do that at all. It almost looks like glass from afar. Very McGyver indeed!

Paint or no paint

Just for gags, this gal decided to paint the kitchen floor. Everything was going well until she realized that she had left the paint tin on the other side of the floor that she just painted! Now that is some bad luck.

The result is footprints on a newly painted floor! Well, this had to happen if she is painting the floor the first time. This is why they say, leave it to the professionals! Yup, some things just aren’t worth doing by yourself.

A door that is not door-ing?

Let’s be clear- what is the purpose of a door? So that it creates a barrier of privacy between one room and another. He wanted to install the door himself and fit it to the frame he had previously measured. It almost went well, until.

He soon realized that the door size was all wrong, to begin with! The door does not even reach the other side, and there is a considerable gap now. Well, he will obviously have to redo his measurements and go back to the drawing board.

A Carpenter’s work not done

How tough can it be to install drawers in your own kitchen? Measure the space. Buy a drawer, install a handle and just slide it in. That is what they thought until they installed the most annoying drawer in the world.

One drawer blocks the other one and can never open fully! The entire point of having drawers stands defeated. We are sure this is not what they had in mind when they started on the whole kitchen remodeling adventure.

A Built-in ladder

Probably one of the most difficult DIY projects to undertake is to build an awning! Still, many people take on this huge challenge and are usually successful if they have some help. However, he barely had the woodwork up and had already made a big oopsie.

He somehow managed to get the ladder stuck inside the wooden framework! Maybe he can try to pass it off as a new “built-in tool ” architectural style? Anyway, he definitely needs to undo all his hard work, free the ladder, and start building all over again.

A not-so-emergency Emergency Button

The whole point of installing an emergency button is so that people can easily reach it in times of…well, an emergency. However, this clever lad decided to put a lock on the emergency button! What on earth was he thinking?!

Will a person go searching for a key to open the lock and then push the emergency button? By that time, a lot of calamities might have already happened! Someone needs to tell him the whole point of an easy-to-access emergency alert.

Some Spray Foam might fix it

Anyone who knows anything about architecture knows that brick and mortar and spray foam are two completely different things. Entire houses are built on the foundation of brick and mortar. Still, this person decided to try to use spray foam instead!

Though it might look as if the spray foam might work in this scenario, it is definitely not a stable and robust enough permanent fix, and this is not a good alternative for mortar. A weak foundation might just spell disaster later on and is not a good idea at all.

Not a fan of this DIY

Installing a ceiling fan seems pretty straightforward. The only thing you have to keep in mind is that the fan should be in the center of the ceiling and not close enough to the edges that it can break walls! Just one look at this picture, and he must be banging his head against the wall.

Instead of saving money, he has now managed to destroy two things with one fateful DIY Project! The wall and the fan are totally ruined, and the entire room looks pretty bad now. Some DIYs should just be avoided at all costs.

A Job not well done

He wanted to save a few bucks trying to install the microwave but ended up breaking the glass stove as well! He will definitely end up paying way more than he wanted to save while trying to install the microwave.

His wife must not be happy at all. At least they can still eat microwavable food for a few days for dinner? She should have stopped him when earlier; now the deed is done. There will only be more repairs to make and more bills to pay.

Just go for a table fan the next time

Another ceiling fan story gone wrong. We are seeing a trend here and can only conclude that installing a fan yourself can not only be hazardous but extremely dangerous as well. One should proceed with caution; otherwise, the end result will look like this.

Image source: jd.manning.realtor/Instagram

The broken table and glass shards look pretty dangerous. There are some things that you should just not do yourself. If there is an urgent need, then getting a professional to help you install the fan is the only way to go. It is safer even though not as convenient.

A fresh new look

Painting your closet is never a bad idea – that is until you forget that you have clothes hanging inside the closet, and they will be getting a coat of paint too if you are too lazy to remove them first, especially if the doors are not solid wood.! At least she realized before she painted the entire closet.

This is the perfect example of more wasted than saved. Not only have all her clothes been ruined, but she will have to start the painting all over again. She will always keep this in mind the next time she attempts a DIY.

A Malfunctioning Drainage System

A proper drainage system is extremely important in a bathroom shower. This person decided to install the shower doors himself, and while everything looks great at first glance – there is one glaringly obvious mistake at the second look.

The drainage hole is outside his designated shower area! One should put the drain where the water goes and not elsewhere. He must have discovered the mistake when he would have had a shower. Calling the plumber is the only solution here.

A lop-sided attempt

Every once in a while, people like to redecorate their houses with the help of vintage lights and such. That’s what the wife wanted: a vintage light above the door. The husband decided to just put the light right above the earlier one and not straight either.

Now, the light is lopsided, and it does not look like a job well done. This is not at all centered, and OCD people will not be able to live like that. He will have to do this all over again just to make it look decent.

DIY Oven

When it is cold outside an outdoor oven can be of great benefit. Cooking outside on a barbecue is definitely one of life’s finer pleasures. This is what this guy thought too. He decided to spend weeks trying to make an outdoor grill.

On the night he inaugurated it, the entire oven broke into flames! He used the wrong mortar that just did not hold up to the intense heat. This might go in the “That looks easy, I can build it myself” gallery of funny DIY Fails.

Holding it together

Warning!!!!!! Do not do this at home. Conduction and convection are two theories that one should know while doing an electrical job. This guy decided to just jab a pair of scissors in an electrical socket to hold the socket together.

This is probably the worst idea we have seen in this entire list, as he could get an electrical shock out of it. Not all DIYs are successful and can often end up being really, really dangerous. So, keep that in mind the next time you try out a DIY project.

Wiring a Plug, Unsuccessfully

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to do something they have never done before. Whether it is washing your own clothes, scrubbing utensils, or wiring a plug – it is always difficult the first time.

This 44-year-old guy had gone so many years without having to do so. He tried his level best, but, unfortunately, he was still not successful. Wiring a plug can be pretty tricky if you have never done it before.

A Drilling Situation

Drilling a hole is not too difficult if you own an electric drill. This fellow below decided to start a project for his deck, and with the first hole he tried drilling – the entire drill bit came off! Now, that may be something wrong with his tools or human error; maybe he did not attach it correctly.

He will have to start all over again and also buy a new drill. This might be more expensive than what he had thought would go into building a deck. That’s the thing with DIY’s; you never know where they might lead you.

A DIY with an unexpected ending

When you stop to think about it, then how difficult can installing two lamps be? Wanting some warm lighting in the room is not a bad idea; it makes the room cozier and adds a warm ambiance. But, it can be jarring when the lights look like something else!

Surely, he did not want this effect in his room. The only way to fix this would be to remove at least one of those lamps from the ceiling. No one would really appreciate something like this over their head!

Maybe the outdoors should just remain outside

We know there is this fascination with trying to incorporate the outdoors inside by using things like floor-to-ceiling glass windows and house plants. Though we’re certainly fans of this kind of interior design, there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

When done tastefully, the results are usually fantastic. However, going overboard like this guy will certainly make you the laughingstock of your neighborhood and, subsequently, the internet. Can you imagine always feeling like you have to follow the path when you need something in the fridge? Hilarious yet mildly infuriating.