Doing their HomeWork Bangor store give hands-on demonstrations for aspiring do-it-yourselfers

Ladies night. The phrase usually conjures up thoughts of cheap drinks, free appetizers and no cover charge.

But at The Home Depot, it takes on an entirely different meaning. Sure, there’s a bit of hoopla – balloon bouquets and a bright orange sign that read: “Welcome ladies to Do It Herself Night: How to install ceramic tile” lured more than a dozen people to the tile aisle on a recent Thursday evening. But instead of Bud, Buffalo wings and bouncers, the women came to the Bangor store for advice, hands-on demonstrations and the chance to win tools. Power tools.

Anne Perkins hadn’t planned on winning a cordless drill when she came to the store last week, nor did she know it was Do-It-Herself night. She just wanted some ideas for a platform under her new gas fireplace. She ended up getting just the inspiration she needed – and then some.

“I just wandered down the aisle,” she said. “Now I’m thinking of doing a lot more with tile, maybe a countertop or floors.”

Though the Bangor store has held Do-It-Herself sessions for some time, the company launched the workshops nationally about a year ago with people like Perkins in mind. According to an opinion poll conducted for the company in April by Roper ASW, three-quarters of American women ages 25 to 49 say they are doing more home improvement projects today than five years ago. Their main reason? It’s fun. Eighty percent of the women polled planned to do some type of home improvement project in the next year.

“Women want to do it on their own instead of waiting for someone else to do it,” said Terry White, who organized the recent Bangor workshop. “We show them that it’s not that hard.”

Show is the operative word. Tile instructor Doug Carter, who recently renovated a barn in Charleston with his fiancee, combined mastic adhesive and water in a bucket, explaining that it should reach “a natural peanut-butterlike consistency.” Then, as he spread the mixture onto a piece of cement backer board, he told the women – and men – in the audience to draw the trowel in a straight motion.

After Carter laid the tile, he mixed the grout in a separate bucket.

“Like peanut butter?” a man in the audience asked.

“No, kind of like …” Carter searched for the right word.

“Hummus,” a woman piped in.

“Right,” Carter said. “Hummus.”

Though the Do-It-Herself classes are planned with a female audience in mind, last week’s impromptu workshop attracted almost as many men as women. One of those men was Lyman Prior of Old Town, who soon will move to a new home in Carmel with his longtime partner Doretta York. They plan to do most of the finish work themselves, and found that the tile class came at just the right time.

“What needs to be done, we do it,” Prior said after the workshop.

“We do a lot of stuff, but not this,” York added. “We’re not afraid of much.”

But for people who are a little unsure of their do-it-yourself abilities, the workshops can be a boon. Marcia Bean of Corinth was shopping for something else when she saw the sign for the tile class, so she decided to stay a little longer at the store. She had wanted to install a tile backsplash in her kitchen, and after Carter’s class, she had the confidence to do it.

“I think it’s less scary after this – it’s less frightening,” Bean said. “I think they teach you enough about it to make you try it.”

Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 or kandresen@bangordailynews.net. For information on Do-It-Herself Workshops, visit www.homedepotclinics.com or check with your local Home Depot store. Though a class is in the works for the first of the year, it has not yet been scheduled.