| The DIY vibe for women involves more than knitting and quilting: today more women are tending to their homes, and they're not just sewing curtains and arranging flowers. They're installing new toilets, adding ceramic floors to the kitchen, and drywalling the den. With 23 percent of all power tool purchases in 2004 made by women, and the number of unmarried females owning homes climbing by nearly 4 million owners from 1994 to 2002, when it comes to home repair, maintenance, and improvement, these sisters are doing it for themselves.
At the same time, a survey by Home Depot found that 73 percent of women would like to learn more about tackling home improvements. But who has the brains, brawn, and beauty to really understand a woman's perspective and give her the confidence to conquer what had traditionally been men's territory? Norma Vally.
Norma Vally is a rare combination: construction worker, former model, television and radio host. As the host of Discovery Home's show Toolbelt Diva, Norma showed women how to throw out the Honey Do lists and "Honey, do it yourself." She's beautiful, sassy, confident, and competent, and with a radio show, a line of tools, a website, and her top-rated TV show she is a franchise dedicated to educating women on home repair, maintenance, and improvement. The Norma Vally book series is as sassy as Norma, packed with real-world tips showing women how to take charge of their homes.
This beautiful, four-color, fully illustrated series provides a basic overview of big-picture renovation. In Norma Vally's Bathroom Fix-Ups, Norma guides the reader through determining not only how to do the work, but how to determine what is right for her: Does she like bright overhead light or soft indirect lighting? Does she live in her bathroom -- and thus need as many homey amenities as possible -- or use it as a showering pit stop? Is it a retreat for one person or the family workhorse? Are there storage considerations? Is plumbing position and function optimal?
Then Norma provides an overview of the jobs best left to professionals and those the reader can master with Norma's guidance: adding a vanity, installing a sink, building in recessed lighting, changing the toilet. Tasks are broken down into three levels of difficulty and cover sinks, toilets, showers, tubs, walls, and flooring.
The book is written in Norma's trademark can-do, sassy voice and will provide confidence to the most nervous renovator, showing readers that Honey-Do lists can truly become a thing of the past.
The book is packaged with a $9.99 value-add DVD of Norma walking the user through three key tasks, one from each level of difficulty: replacing a flush handle, changing a toilet flapper, and replacing a toilet. None of the competition contains this multimedia element.
|
