Decorating & Renovating
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Have you DIY'ed ...?
I'm not very handy, but I want to teach myself, and there are some immediate projects in our new place that I think I can handle, but I'm curious about your experiences, advice....of course, I'd like to try to save money by trying to do things myself, but if it's a really hard job I'm not anticipating properly, I'd sure like to know! Thanks in advance 
1) Replacing a toilet
2) Installing a subway tile backsplash in the kitchen
Thoughts? Experiences?
Re: Have you DIY'ed ...?
Yes those are both very easy to DIY.
For the toilet do your research first and buy a toilet that best suits your needs. If you're going to be in this house for a while and want a high performance toilet see our Toto post from the other day. They come with installation instructions and different manufacturers are each slightly different. Depending on how your old toilet was installed you might have to raise the plastic ring the toilet bolts on to or drill new holes in the floor below. They are both easy to do...big box stores carry ring raisers in their plumbing department. Odds are you won't have to do either if unless it's a very old installation. (Note if you plan to change the flooring in the future take any added height into account now if you can.) Besides that all you need are new bolts to attach to the plastic ring (it's best to just always replace those when you replace the toilet) and a new wax ring. Do not buy a wax ring with a black plastic horn. They often don't seal correctly and are easy to screw up as a DIYer. Most plumbers avoid them all together and just by the regular rings. Look at the underside of the new toilet and see if the cavity for the ring is very large. A lot of new toilets need extra tall wax rings but big box stores don't always carry them in the non-horn styles. So just do what we did (what our plumber suggested) and buy two regular sized ones and stack them.
Re: backsplash tile. You'll need to get a good idea on what kind of tile you want to use and then come back to ask for advice. Different sizes, shapes, and materials will need different installation instructions. Go see what you and your SO like and what will work with your kitchen first.
HTH
1) talk with others around you that might be handy or do this kind of work regularly. it is a fairly common thing to do, so you could just help with one sometime. this recommendation could also apply to the 2nd project (tile), too.
2) home depot has some great classes for learning a lot of things, including tiling projects. i've taken the tile one, hardwood flooring and moulding classes and found them very useful. oh, and they are free!
We haven't tried a toilet install just because we have not needed to.
I did do our subway tile kitchen backsplash myself. Overall it was easier than I expected. It was a bit time consuming with all the cuts we needed for the corners (U shaped kitchen and counter) but I'm very, very, very happy with the results. I did some searches on Google/YouTube for general tutorials, got recommendations for products based on the tile I used and went to work.