DIY nation

It was a job for which Stegman and her husband used to hire landscapers. The couple routinely paid $450 to $600 for fall cleanup and $300 to $450 for spring cleanup. Not anymore. The economic downturn has hit her graphic design company hard, and taken an even deeper toll on her husband's management consulting business. At the moment, paying for yard work makes no sense to them.

"It costs a fortune," said Stegman. "So I was like, OK, that's it. I'm doing most of it myself."

That refrain is heard more and more among homeowners. Amid a protracted recession, the middle class is rediscovering the pleasures and pains of manual labor. Whether it is a faucet that needs fixing, a lawn that needs tending, cracked bathroom tiles that have to be replaced, kitchen cabinets in need of refinishing, or a house crying out for a new coat of paint, "do it yourself" is the new mantra.

Hardware stores report a deluge of cost-conscious customers looking for do-it-yourself products and tools. "You name it, they're doing it," said Paul St. Jean, assistant manager at Aubuchon Hardware in Maynard. "Home repairs, small electrical jobs, replacing their own toilet. What they can do, they're doing it, if it's not too hard."

The data suggest that a growing cadre of do-it-yourselfers now consider "too expensive" more daunting than "too hard." An ongoing survey of 13,000 homeowners by the Florida-based Home Improvement Research Institute found that while there was a minuscule decline in the number of home-improvement projects in February and March compared with the same period last year, there was a steep 17 percent drop in the number of projects that involved contractors.

In a further indication that many homeowners are paying for materials but supplying much of the labor themselves, the survey found that homeowners were planning to spend an average of $603 per project this February and March, down from an average of $685 last year. "People are attempting the more simple things themselves in an effort to save money," said Richard Johnston, senior research analyst at the institute.

This quest for self-reliance, of course, involves a learning curve. If you don't know which end of a hammer to hold, you probably have no business wielding a glue gun. Mindful of that fact, novice do-it-yourselfers are seeking advice along with their hardware store purchases.

Tom Kelley, a former remodeler who is now manager of Joseph's Do It Best Home Center in Cohasset, says a steady stream of homeowners come into his store to buy supplies and ask him how to put in a new faucet or repoint brick masonry. "They're asking, 'Is this easy to do? Where do I start?' " Kelley said. Or they are sticking to tasks that they think they can handle with little or no training. Randy Disinger, manager of Wills Hardware in Medfield, said that "business is booming" in the categories of lawn-care products and paint supplies. "More people are inclined to do it themselves versus hiring a professional," said Disinger.

Obviously, these do not represent glad tidings for plumbers, painters, carpenters, masons, landscapers, and other contractors. They maintain that their experience gives them a decisive edge over do-it-yourselfers on projects large and small. "You need skilled professionals at any level if you want it to turn out right," insisted Matt Carr, co-owner of a home renovation and construction firm, as he carried cans of paint out of Hometown Paint & Hardware in downtown Natick.

But two aisles over, Stephen Weinstein, co-owner of Hometown Paint & Hardware, said that, at least for the moment, the recession-driven trend toward do-it-yourselfism is unmistakable. "We have seen a major shift in the past year from contractors to homeowners, because of the economic situation," Weinstein said. "We're seeing a lot more consumers."

In fact, so great is his customers' appetite for acquiring DIY know-how that the store has begun hosting workshops, led by tradesmen, on such topics as how to repair a wall, how to caulk a window, and how to prepare for a paint job.

Of course, plenty of people have always preferred to do it themselves when it comes to home or lawn maintenance. The popularity of PBS's long-running home improvement show, "This Old House," attests to that. There is even a cable television channel devoted to the subject, the DIY Network.

But there are plenty of others, prompted by a newfound sense of financial caution, who are tapping into their inner handyman or handywoman for the first time - and finding that they like it.

Jamie Sarkisian of Waltham never considered himself all that handy, but he was tired of shelling out big bucks to contractors. So he watched repairmen closely when they did work on his house, asked them a lot of questions, and did some research online. Then he started tackling small projects around the house, eventually graduating to bigger tasks. "I try and I fail, I try and I fail. I learn," he said. "I look at it as building an inventory of skills."

When his front door needed to be replaced, he decided to do it himself. "It took forever," he acknowledged. He also painted the house himself, resurfaced the front walk ("It doesn't drain as well as it should," he conceded), built a patio, sealed his driveway, and fixed a plumbing problem. He also discontinued the lawn service to which he used to pay a total of $600 a year, opting to seed and fertilize his lawn, spray weeds, and cut the grass by himself.

"I do it to save money," explained Sarkisian, 49, whose company, Sark Products Inc., sells and services heart-rate monitors. "You can either earn money, or you can save money. I enjoy being able to save money. If I don't feel overwhelmed by a project, sometimes it just becomes enjoyable doing it yourself."

Mary Powers of Pembroke, a trademark researcher in her 40s, had never tried what she calls "handyman stuff" until the recession hit. But over the winter Powers learned how to operate a snowblower and cleared her own driveway, meaning she no longer had to pay $30 per storm to a snow-plow operator. Emboldened, she put in a new mailbox post recently with some help from a neighbor, and plans to replace loose sealant around her bathtub by herself. "Hopefully, I can do that without all hell breaking loose, or the bathtub falling into the basement," she joked in an e-mail.

So will this new spirit of self-reliance end when the recession does? Some say no.

"A lot of people figured, oh, I don't know how to change a toilet, I can't change a plug," says St. Jean. "But once they've learned how to do this, I think they'll continue to do it themselves."

Perhaps. But despondent contractors may find solace in the case of Stegman. Even though she has gotten pretty adept with a leaf-blower, she says that once her business rebounds, her handywoman days will be over.

"It takes so much time, and it's really back-breaking," she said. "I would definitely go back to having somebody do it in the fall, when we could afford it."

Don Aucoin can be reached at aucoin@globe.com.