DIY

[kruddler]

Just wondering if there are any DIY renovation aficionados on the forum?

I've just bought my first house and will be moving in probably around April and starting to plan a few renovations that need to be done.

Has anyone here ever installed their own timber laminate or vinyl plank flooring? If so, is it the kind of thing a reno novice can do? I have never done any reno style projects, but am conscious of my dwindling budget, so trying to prioritise what I should get a professional for and what I might be able to do myself.

Three biggest jobs are:

Painting - Interior only, but basically every room needs to be done
Carpet - To bedrooms (3) and lounge
Flooring - Kitchen, family room and hallways. Tossing up between timber laminate and vinyl planks

I definitely will have to get the carpets done professionally, so mainly it's going to be whether I do the painting myself, or do the flooring myself. So to anyone with some experience, which would be the easiest for someone with absolutely no experience in either?

Qualified chippy who works for a builder who encourages us to try our hand at everything.
Also renovating a beach house at the moment.

Painting is worth giving a try yourself. I've prepped and painted both inside and outside. Give it a crack and if you fail, you can always get a qualified painter to do it.
Some advice is to start in a room that doesn't matter and work your way up to the bigger rooms. Also spend the extra coin on getting half decent brushes and rollers, it makes a big difference.

Carpet relatively cheap, and the most physical of all the jobs. Don't bother.

Flooring You've got plenty of options and you need to narrow down which option you want to see if its worth doing.
Tongue and groove flooring can be quick if you have all the tools, but can get very tricky cutting in and around doorways and what not. You also need to decide if you want to glue down or floating both have pros and cons of both.
Alternatively you mentioned vinyl planks...they also come in 2 kinds, stickyback and dryback. One with its own glue, one where you glue it yourself. You really need to ensure you have a flat surface as they are only 2mm thick and show up imperfections underneath. Using some hardboard underneath is advisable.
Assuming you get your level right underneath, the actual putting of vinyl planks down requires little more than a knife to make the difficult cuts and little hard labour.
Worth a crack.

All in all, watch plenty of videos first for little tips.

[LP]

To be fair, that's one of the main reasons I've got that on the list of things I should pay other people to do. I'll be taking some time off work to set up the house, I don't know if I want 80% of that time to be used just painting. There's heaps of other stuff we'll be doing ourselves as it is.

I will check out some of the YouTube vids though and see if I think I'll be able to do the flooring.

Thanks heaps 

Buy good LED floodlights, not the old halogen type. The LED type are ultra-bright, won't catch fire or blow if you knock them over, are light weight easy to move so you can illuminate many angles. Once you have decent lighting you can paint anytime of day, if you have rubbish lighting the painting and prep work will look great in the evening and then when the sun rises you'll be disappointed.

Some sort of hand held light for inspecting along the walls, shining at a shallow angle to see shadows from hair, debris, high or low spots is also very useful. Good cutting in brushes are essential, don't get sucked into buying those gadgets that claim they cut in, they generally don't work or don't work for very long.

[Professer E]

Those cutting in wheeled pads are hopeless, should be banned as false advertising.  Buy a good sash cutter, take your time and look after that brush.

A scapal or razor knife is handy for removing hairs, lint nibs etc.

[Navy Maven]

Thanks heaps guys, all advise has been much appreciated 

[DJC]

Good luck with it NM; I'm sure that it will turn out really well.

Are you going to post work in progress photos? 

[tonyo]

Excellent, thanks for that. So those guys are just suppliers yeah? Did you just get a local contractor to do the work?

The supplier arranged the layer.