Hey, friends! The holiday weekend is fast approaching and even though we aren’t going out of town on a fun trip, I’m looking forward to the 3 day weekend with Mark having an extra day off. I love it when he’s home and we can work on things together. We do have a few projects coming up that I’ll be sharing with you all, one being we will be adding a glass tile backsplash to his mom’s kitchen.
Speaking of DIY, a few weeks ago, I was invited to Home Depot’s New Homeowner’s day (May 1st) along with some other bloggers, where we learned more about DIY and how to accomplish things around the house in an efficient manner. It was a fun event so I’m sharing that with you today. I’ve worked with Home Depot as part of the Haven Conference for 7 years now and they are wonderful folks!
We were treated to a delicious dinner the night before at Canoe Restaurant in Vinings, which if you live here, you know what a great restaurant it is. The next day we met at Home Depot headquarters in Vinings for a fun tour of some of their facility. I had been to headquarters several times, but not in this capacity and it was really neat to see it in person.
Their test lab was really interesting, such as this one for testing out a toilet for hundreds of flushes to see how each performs over time. I was pleased to hear that they test out so many of their major products before they put them on the shelves for consumers to buy. We saw many machines testing out so many products including outdoor furniture being exposed to weather elements that speed up time to see how they weather outdoors over years of exposure.
We then headed down to Pinewood Studios south of Atlanta for a day of DIY and interaction with Home Depot and Chip Wade, a TV producer, HGTV personality, and all around celebrity craftsman!
I’ve met Chip before and he’s such a talented guy, it was fun to spend the day with him and everyone else. Pinewood Studios is a film studio which supports the growing movie industry in Georgia. It’s a huge place with lots of room to spread out.
We were divided into 4 teams and we each had a space to create. My team had the dining room.
So it was basically a big white room challenge. We got to pick paint colors for the top of the wainscot and the flooring was already in progress and we got to try our hand at installing that as well.
We also tried out products from Wagner, like their sprayers and paint rollers, making this job quick and easy. We learned some tips along the way too from Chip and the Home Depot folks.
Here’s our finished dining room space. They had several pieces of furniture to choose from and we all got to chime in on how we wanted our space to look. Accessories finished things off. It was fun to put it all together and envision a pretty dining room space.
We all thought our spaces turned out cute for the amount of time spent on them.
Fun to see a room come together in less than 2 hours!
It was a very interesting and informative day centered around Home Depot, their vendors, and the DIY community, of which I’m happy to be a part.
I also connected with a few local bloggers and Katie with The Rustic Boxwood was one of them. She’s so sweet and down to earth and we had a great time chatting and it was great getting to know her more. She shared a post about the day too, so go and take a peek at her post!
I thought this study was interesting, so read along to see how you fit into the DIY mindset in America.
The Home Depot commissioned a study (by Wakefield Research) of U.S. new homeowners ages 25+, who purchased a home in the past 12 months and found:
- Not surprisingly, most Americans feel the price of completing a project is the biggest factor in determining whether to take on a new project after purchasing their new home (62 percent).
- Midwesterners are particularly price-conscious about their projects especially when compared to Southerners (70 percent vs. 59 percent, respectively).
- City dwellers want to take on fixer-uppers with big remodels more than people living in the suburbs and in rural settings combined (43 percent vs. 19 and 23 percent).
- When it comes to which area of the home to tackle first, 33 percent of Americans say they are most likely to renovate the kitchen first, followed by the bathroom (27 percent).
- Midwesterners are more likely than West-coasters to start with the bathroom (31 percent vs. 24 percent). Northeasterners are more likely than Southerners to hit the ground running with the kitchen (37 percent vs. 31 percent).
- More than 57 percent of Americans feel confident they could remodel an entire room in their new home completely by themselves.
- Millennials are extremely confident when it comes to tackling an entire room remodel, with 64 percent saying they could complete the project without any help from a professional.
- Americans’ biggest motivations for taking on projects in their new homes are to make it feel more like “home” (42 percent) and to add more value or upgrade (32 percent).
- Baby Boomers (44 percent) renovate with the goal of adding value and upgrading, more so than Millennials (35 percent) and Gen Xers (34 percent).
- Nearly a third (32 percent) of those surveyed want their home to look updated without undergoing major renovations; 28 percent want to start with simple changes; 26 percent want to buy a fixer-upper and make big changes; and 14 percent want to make minimal changes without taking on the stress of renovations.
What do you think of those findings?
Mark and I definitely take price and budget into consideration when we are thinking about a project at our house. I definitely agree that kitchens and bathrooms are the top areas to renovate in a home.
As a Baby Boomer, I also agree that we do have the goal of adding value and upgrading our homes when it comes to renovation projects. It’s also for our own comfort and asthetic as well!
It did surprise me that Millennials say they are confident they could tackle an entire room remodel without help from a professional, but maybe this age group is more industrious than I give them credit for.
What do you think?
Are you and your family DIYer’s or do you mostly leave it to the pros? Mark and I are a mix and the older we get, we definitely know which projects to let the professionals handle. But, I’m proud to be a DIYer and to have accomplished so many home projects with my husband, Mark and especially with my daddy in my old house. We saved so much money by DIYing the way we did and I’m very grateful for those sweet memories and a house to show for it!
- Rhoda
We are in our 70’s now so we have to rely on pros more. But we had our days of DYI, like painting, wallpapering, installing appliances. My husband laughingly, remembers a dyi with concrete. He and a friend didn’t know how to measure it. They had to keep going back for more bags.😂
HI, Nancy, I hear you! Projects get harder as we age, so Mark and I can’t do as much as we used to do, but we still take on a lot ourselves. We are about to stain our fence, deck and new stairs this summer. That’s funny about the concrete bags! Sounds like something I’d do.
Initially, the millennials’ self-confidence % brought out a strong sense of doubt in me. Then I felt a little ashamed. Haven’t I sometimes take on questionable solo DIY projects to avoid imposing on friends or family? So I said a prayer. “Lord, please help the millennials prove me wrong. I sincerely want their generation to be better than my generation, successful and godly. And, help me be an encouragement to them and not a hindrance. Amen.”
Dian, that’s a really nice sentiment! I have to admit I felt the same way when I read that statistic. I had my doubts too because the younger generation sometimes seems lazier than we are, but we know we can’t generalize a whole group of people. We wouldn’t want all Baby Boomers to be lumped together either good or bad.
Millennials search info on the web when they have an unfamiliar task. Anything they need to know how to do can be found on YouTube. I have a millennial daughter, who with her significant other, bought a vintage travel trailer and gutted it down to the frame. They learned electrical skills, physics info as far as how to balance the load, plumbing, etc. The interior has curved wooden walls that are amazing.
Hi, Terry, That age group grew up with computers so that’s the normal thing for them to do. Heck, I do it too now when I want to know something! What a great thing for them to take on, good for them for learning as they go.
Sounds like a fun time! The older I get, the less I try to DIY. I just don’t have the energy or patience anymore.
On another note, how are you enjoying your new house? I know y’all have done a lot to it since moving in and it is just beautiful. I hope it feels like home. xo
Hey, Sharon, thank you for stopping by! We are loving our new house even more than we anticipated. It really feels like home now, almost a year after moving in. We’ve done a lot and keep talking about what’s next. My get up and go is not what it used to be, so we both procrastinate a lot too. So hard to keep doing things as we get older, but we aren’t stopping anytime soon. Just take more breaks!
Pinewoods Studio is in my neck of the woods. Did they take you to the cafeteria (Hanna Brothers)? It is a good place to eat. The menu changes every day.
I must admit I am a baby boomer, but I often consult YouTube on how to repair things. I saved a service call on my dishwasher using YouTube.
HI, Tee, that’s great that you were able to repair something by looking at You Tube. We looked up a video on You Tube when my hubby was demoing the old bathtub in our guest bath. It was great to refer to that before he got started, so I agree on that part, You Tube has everything!
We didn’t go to the cafeteria, they brought food in for us, so didn’t visit the whole place.