My love/hate relationship with Pinterest

Oh, Pinterest. How many hours have I spent looking at your pins? Saving them, sharing them and dreaming about how a project would look in my home? I have created food boards, decorating boards, hairstyle boards and of course, I use it for marketing my company. I get excited when I get a notification that someone has saved one of the pins I posted. You are the ultimate idea machine and visual candy store.

But Pinterest, you are a cruel hope dasher as well. You try to tell innocent DIY'ers that they can create those masterpieces without any knowledge or experience. I have found that you are not always honest.

You give ridiculous pricing approximations and then when a client calls and I give them a realistic quote, they are shocked because YOU said that an epoxy floor should cost $2 a square foot. Shame on you, Pinterest for that disappointment. You fail to take into consideration prep work and actual material and labor costs.

Due to your willy-nilly attitude, some of my wonderful clients have tried to DIY their own projects. Sadly, they didn't turn out like you promised. They are disappointed and let down. They come to me feeling

sad and apprehensive. They want to know that I can do what it takes to give them what they wanted originally.

I am guilty of the same mistake. Recently I decided to change my hair color. I have zero formal experience with the science of hair coloring but hey, there was a box at the store and I liked the color. How hard could it be? I bought that box, put on the "colorist gloves" that came in it and mixed the two parts together as instructed. I applied it to my hair and the waiting began. After the instructed time, I rinsed it out and blow dried it. Well....it didn't come out anything like the pretty picture on the box. My scalp and roots liked like I was bleeding. Bright red and so not the dark auburn color I was promised. I knew I couldn't go meet with clients looking like that so I did my research and bought a color remover. YES! It promised to take all the color back out and restore me to what I was before my mistake.

This product stunk like rotten eggs. It was nasty but I needed to undo my mistake so on my hair it went. 20 minutes later I followed the instructions to wash it out of my hair. Blow drying revealed orange hair. Orange. It was not back to the brown (with gray roots) that we started with. Nope, orange. By this time I was close to panicking. I was too scared to try to put another color over the top of it. I finally came to my senses and made an appointment with an expert. She was very sweet and understanding and 5 hours later, I had my normal hair color back. 5 hours and 3 times the amount it would have cost me if I had gone to her in the first place. Lesson learned.

Please remember when looking at these pins that some projects really do require an expert. Someone who understands the science of what you are wanting to accomplish. I promise you that your out of pocket costs will be lower by hiring a professional than if you need to have it redone. And hey, if you need a great hair stylist, I can give you a referral!