HGTV – One-stop shopping for home renovation and garden designs – takes on a whole new meaning when you become a homeowner.

Gone are the days of calling the landlord to fix a broken pipe or leaky faucet. The days when you lived with peeling paint and out-dated light fixtures because they weren’t yours to worry about.

Owning a home is a wonderful thing, but it’s not as easy as it looks on some of the new reality-like shows that are teaching us how to faux finish a wall and install track lighting.

Spring has arrived and Man on the Couch and I have begun to tackle some of the outdoor projects we just couldn’t get to this winter.

With a little help some from handy friends, we’ve ripped out our garage door and added a large window to turn the built-in garage into additional living space.

Also on our list to complete this summer is some landscaping to widen our too-narrow driveway, vinyl siding that needs to be replaced, and front and back decks to build.

Will we get it all done? That’s a question we keep asking ourselves that I don’t really dare to answer.

If all we had to do is read about it, talk about it and watch other people do it, we would have been done months ago. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy.

I do, however, find myself watching more and more do-it-yourselfer shows like HGTV’s “Curb Appeal,” hosted by Rick Spence, and “Design on a Dime,” and as I’ve said before, I’m addicted to TLC’s “Trading Spaces.”

Shows like this are a great way to get ideas and inspiration.

There’s only one problem. While they say it’s easy to do and make it look easy to do – it’s not.

Hosts and designers also claim it’s affordable and that anyone can deconstruct and renovate. I beg to differ. It’s a lot of work and costs money. In addition, they don’t take into consideration the cost of having an expert come in to fix things if you make a mess that you can’t handle.

So as you dust off the lawnmower and barbecue, look to reality decorating and renovating shows for inspiration for your summer household projects, but don’t get discouraged when it takes a lot more perspiration to finish what looked simple on TV.

After all, what takes a couple of days to accomplish on HGTV’s “Weekend Warriors” more than likely will take the average home warrior more than one weekend.