Posted on 10/20/2004 7:05:17 PM PDT by NCjim
TELEVISION’S new breed of DIY queens may have made their names ordering men about on their MDF-inspired makeover programmes, but a new survey has found that women still leave their male counterparts to put up the shelves.
Despite small-screen encouragement from the likes of Carol Smilie, Linda Barker and Anna Ryder Richardson, new research reveals that only two out of five women undertake any practical home-improvement tasks.
Chores such as wallpapering, tiling and putting up shelves are shunned by 21st-century women, who leave them to the men in their households.
The market-research group Mintel found that only 5 per cent of women consider DIY as their hobby and that women are twice as likely as men to do no DIY at all.
The firm says a rise in DFY - Done For You - work is down to the fact that a quarter of adults simply can’t cope when confronted with the reality of home renovation.
Amanda Lintott, a market analyst, said: "For some time there have been considerable efforts to break down the gender barriers in the world of DIY.
"It is now widely believed that men and women carry out DIY tasks equally, but this clearly is not the case. In fact, in the real world, men are far more likely to take responsibility for seeing DIY projects through to completion."
The company found that although British adults spend as much as £40 billion each year on renovation goods, the hard work is left to men, with 60 per cent of men doing some or all of their household DIY.
Figures for 2003 show expenditure of £10 billion on hardware, paint, brushes and building products, with a further £30 billion paid out for other decorating, kitchen and gardening products or appliances.
Researchers claim that we will pay £11.5 billion for hardware alone this year, an increase from £7.4 billion in 1999.
The rise of TV makeover programmes has grown on the back of rising incomes among homeowners, who are increasingly seeing their property as an investment.
Encouraging us to spend money on anything from gazebos to Jacuzzis, patio heaters to granny flats, TV programmes such as Changing Rooms and DIY SOS suggest that we "make over" where before we would redecorate.
Ms Lintott said decorating programmes account for much of the surge in interest, but warned that the results of attempts at DIY were not always appealing. She said: "The makeover mania has had some undesirable side effects, from bodged jobs and unsuccessful colour and design schemes to accidents and even injuries.
"Despite the TV makeover craze, the reality is that DIY for most people means a fairly mundane job of tackling grubby-looking walls with a coating of paint or wallpaper."
Hiring a handyman to do the odd jobs around the house instead of doing it yourself is about to become more popular, says the report.
A quarter of adults do absolutely no DIY or decorating - leaving open a significant market for tradesmen’s services.
Ms Lintott said: "DFY has yet to take off here in the UK. That said, any market requires momentum to build up and it may simply be the case that DFY has to become fashionable through the media coverage and word-of-mouth recommendation that has so far supported DIY."
Interestingly, people who are simply renting their homes still seem ready to get their hands dirty even though they may not have a vested interest in the upkeep of the property.
More than half of those who rent say they do some or all of the decorating while just under half (46 per cent) say that they do all or some DIY around the house.
3 words: Amy Wynn, yowsa.
Please do not post stuff like this on FreeRepublic. My wife sometimes reads this forum. And I've convinced her that if she wants the kitchen painted she has to do it.
Am a big believer in NOT doing home improvement jobs. I'd rather pay a couple hundred bucks and throw some work to a reputable business owned by a friend of mine to do the job professionally rather than make the problem worse by my lack of skills and end up calling for help anyway. :>
I don't buy the wallpapering part. Every woman I've known was happy to do it, although they're right about the others.
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