RecruitingFounding Bookhandcraft / diy
We Renovated It Ourselves
Real people on the home projects they took on, how they pulled them off, and what they spent.
Real people on the home projects they took on, how they pulled them off, and what they spent.
Problem
Honest home project stories are hard to find. Most of what's online is finished photos and before-and-afters, with the messy middle left out. What did it really cost? How far over did it run? What got torn out and redone? That part rarely gets written down.
Why this is different
Here, people who did the work themselves write up one project from their own home. Big or small, a full renovation or a tired little bathroom. They walk through how they did it, what to watch for, and what it cost. No theory. Just real projects from people who lived through them.
What you get
A better feel for what a project takes before you start your own: how the work goes, what it costs, how long it actually takes, and which mistakes you can skip. Including the parts where they'd tell you to stop and call a pro.
People post these stories all the time: what the project really cost, how long it dragged on, what they would do differently. Then the thread disappears. A handful of those stories, side by side, would make a book worth keeping. Big job or small, if you did it yourself, we want your chapter.
Most home improvement books are one expert telling you the right way to do it. This one is ordinary people showing how they actually handled one real project, budget, mistakes, and all.
This is an open collection, so the outline stays light on purpose. We start the book; the contributors write it. Each chapter is one person's own project, big or small, shaped and written by them, not by us. The slots below will fill in as people join. Every chapter follows the same basic shape: what you took on, what it cost, how long it ran, how you did it step by step, what went wrong, and what you'd tell someone about to try the same thing.
You completed a real home project with your own hands, not just planned one or watched someone else do it. It can be a full renovation, a small bathroom, a kitchen repair, built-ins, flooring, painting, or another project that changed the place. Bring the project record: what you started with, what you did step by step, what it cost, how long it took, what went wrong, where you should have called a pro, and what you would do differently.
You shape the book as a real anthology, not a before-and-after gallery. You decide which home projects belong, set the chapter order, push contributors for budgets, timelines, materials, tools, permits, safety limits, mistakes, and photos or receipts when useful, and keep each chapter practical without turning it into a DIY fantasy. You copyedit, proofread, ask follow-ups, and protect each homeowner's voice.
You help a homeowner turn a messy project into a chapter people can follow. You interview, read notes or photos when needed, ask for the missing dates, costs, tools, materials, measurements, setbacks, fixes, and moments where professional help mattered, then draft in the homeowner's voice. You revise with them until the chapter feels accurate, not polished into a perfect makeover.
This book was started by ThePeopleBook, a platform for collaborative nonfiction. We organize the book and bring the contributors together, but the writing is theirs. We are not builders, and we are not presenting ourselves as experts in home projects. That experience belongs to the people who did the work. We are starting this book to gather real home project stories in one place, written by the people who took them on. The book is currently looking for a lead. As the team forms, that role, along with full authority over the book, will be handed over to the right contributor. If you are interested, write to [email protected].
Leader