The term "do-it-yourself" applies in its broadest sense to a range of tasks, usually domestic projects of repair or improvement, completed by individuals who are amateurs in the field. Instead of hiring professional contractors, many homeowners enjoy the challenge of learning new skills, adapting individual styles, and incorporating materials and techniques from local sources to beautify and improve their homes. The high degree of personal satisfaction, not to mention cost-of-labor savings, provide substantial incentives to many do-it-yourselfers. Many view the work they do on their homes as a hobby, and do-it-yourselfers can now learn and master home improvement methods and techniques from an enormous variety of books, television shows, and mulitimedia computer programs.

Though people had relied on manual skills before industrialization, personal skills and expertise gave way to organized labor and specialized craftsmanship by the early nineteenth century when early industrialization and the infusion of...