By L.E. Swenson

I have a colleague who is jealous of my house. He tells me he wishes that he had a house to putter around in. That has never been my style. I have never gone in for competitive home improvement and all of the phallus measuring that goes along with it.

There is a tradeoff, of course, for abjuring the Home Depot worship of the home improvement buff. I have to call experts to do work rather than “do it myself” because the joke I have with my wife is that if I “do it myself” it will look like “I did it myself” and visitors to the house will ask, “Did you do that work yourself?” I will say, “Yes, I did.” They will reply, “Wow, it shows!”

So the problem with calling the experts is the cost. Everything for the house costs a couple hundred or a couple thousand dollars.

A couple hundred: Fix Garage Door spring, Repair broken refrigerator, Clean gutters.

A couple thousand: Painting, Flooring, Doors, Windows.

And then there are the major repairs. This category brings us to a several thousand.

Several thousand: Foundation Repair, Room Renovation, Additions, Pools, Decks.

But if you just watch This Old House, you can learn how to do it yourself, no problem.

I will leave the circular saw at Home Depot and keep all my fingers.