69 Times People Realized Doing Something Themselves Wasn’t Such A Bright Idea

The numbers suggest that most of us are laughing at ourselves. Angi’s Home Oops Report found that 78 percent of surveyed homeowners had experienced a home oops moment, and the average DIY mistake cost $1,171 to fix. More than half of those mistakes needed a professional to finish the job.

There is also a soft spot at the center of every DIY disaster, and it has a name. Researchers at Harvard, Yale and Duke dubbed it the IKEA effect after finding that test subjects would pay 63 percent more for furniture they had assembled themselves than for identical units that arrived already built. We love what we make, even when it leans a little to the left. That pride is a big part of why these fails feel affectionate instead of cruel. The builder almost always steps back, tilts their head and declares that the slant gives the room character.

So laugh freely at the lopsided shelves and the doors that open the wrong way. The humor works because nobody is badly hurt, everybody has been there, and somewhere in a garage a half finished project is already waiting to star in the next list.