Majjie's Blog

Adding that bit about the garden gives me an excuse to add some spring pictures from my garden (yes ... I've been gardening ... just look at the new stain on that shed!):

According to an article on the Financial Times website yesterday ... more people will be carrying out work on their homes themselves this year, because of the credit crunch and budgets being tight. People aren't moving house and don't want to pay out for professional help but they still want to improve their surroundings. That could be good news for purveyors of household and garden items ... including kitchens. Wickes has reported increased sales of kitchens this year.

I'd be a bit wary of fitting your own kitchen ... if you have very little experience of DIY. It's not fixing the units that's tricky; it's joining the worktops and any cornice and light pelmet trims. Messy corners are a dead giveaway. You could always get in a professional just for those bits, though ... and, of course, for the electrics and any gas connections.

B&Q reckon that financial uncertainty has brought out the "nesting instinct" in us and Homebase apparently carried out a survey during March in which 47% of shoppers said they were more likely to attempt decorating and repair projects as a result of the economic downturn. It was a tad worrying, though, that nearly half of them didn't know how to hang wallpaper and 65% had no idea how to fix a dripping tap.

Some analysts aren't convinced about the positive signs, in any case. They pointed out that Easter was much earlier last year and was cold and wet ... so you'd expect sales to be up this year, with a bit of a warm spell. And the increased kitchen sales in some stores could just be a result of MFI's absence, rather than a real increase in kitchen buying. Oh well ....