Home improvement is the process of renovating or making additions to one's home. Often, a professional handyman is hired to perform the improvements but, typically, most improvements are done on an amateur do it yourself basis by the homeowner.

Professional vs. do it yourself

A homeowner can hire a general contractor to oversee a home improvement project that involves multiple trades. A general contractor acts as project manager, providing access to the site, removing debris, coordinating work schedules, and performing some aspects of the work.

Sometimes homeowners bypass the general contractor, and hire tradesmen themselves, including plumbers, electricians and roofers. Another strategy is to "do it yourself". Several major retailers, such as Home Depot and Lowes, specialize in selling materials and tools for do it yourself home improvement. These stores even host classes to educate customers how to do the work themselves.

Home Repair

Repair is not necessarily the same as home improvement, although many improvements can result from repairs or maintenance. Often the costs of larger repairs will justify the alternative of investment in full-scale improvements.

It may make just as much sense to upgrade a home system (with an improved one) as to repair it or incur ever-more-frequent and expensive maintenance for an inefficient, obsolete or dying system. For a do it yourself project, it is also useful to establish limits on how much time and money you're willing to invest before deciding a repair (or list of repairs) is overwhelming and discouraging, and less likely to ever be completed.

Repairs often mean simple replacement of worn or used components intended to be periodically renewed by a homeowner, such as burnt out light bulbs, worn out batteries, or overfilled vacuum cleaner bags. Another class of home repairs relates to restoring something to a useful condition, such as sharpening tools or utensils, replacing leaky faucet washers, cleaning out plumbing traps, rain gutters.

Because of the required precision, specialized tools, or hazards, some of these are best left to experts such as a plumber. One emergency repair that may be necessary in this area is overflowing toilets. Most of them have a shutoff valve on a pipe beneath or behind them so that the water supply can be removed while repairs are made, either by removing a clog or repairing a broken mechanism.