Interior Artist offers home repair school for women

The National Association of Realtors notes that as of 2002, there were 17.5 million single women homeowners, and in 2004, single women accounted for 18 percent of all home buyers.

For Sherry Veach, that spells opportunity.

Veach has opened The Interior Artist School of Home Repair, an educational program specifically targeted to women, at 1948 S. Glenstone, Ste. 103.

Costs range from $50 to $75 per class, and there is no set meeting time for classes. Instead, the time for each session is customized to match the enrolled students’ individual schedules. Veach is working with a handful of interested students to finalize meeting times for her first class.

An outgrowth of artistry

The idea for a women-oriented home repair school grew out of Veach’s seven-year-old decorative painting, Venetian plaster and mural business, The Interior Artist.

Through the years, several women approached Veach wanting to learn how to do what she does, and with the rise in women’s homeownership, she felt there was a viable niche for a home improvement education program.

When it comes to home repair, “women have been intimidated for generations that they can’t do it, or they don’t know how to do it,” she said. “I want to empower those women and let them know that it is not hard, they can do it; and they can save money by doing it themselves.”

Veach offers classes in electrical, plumbing, wall repair, door knobs and locks, tile and painting, but she’s open to other topics if there is demand.

“It is set up just like the classes I had when I was going to college,” she said. “You have lecture, you have the demonstration and you have hands-on lab. I want them to have full understanding of everything they do.”

That way, Veach said, even if students decide to hire a contractor rather than take on a home-repair job alone, they will be knowledgeable consumers who can discuss the work to be done.

While Veach particularly targets women with her program, she knows male homeowners also need instruction, and they, too, are welcome to enroll.

“The school is designed to meet the needs of women, but it’s not limited to women,” Veach said. While classes are available to all, men and women meet in separate sessions so no one feels intimidated or embarrassed about asking questions.

Veach teaches that minor plumbing problems, such as repairing a running toilet, can be handled cost-effectively at home. A person won’t walk out of Veach’s electric class able to wire a whole house, she said, but that person will have a solid understanding of how it was done.

Beyond décor

Though Veach is an artist, her knowledge of construction and design runs much deeper than décor. Growing up on an Ohio dairy farm, she acquired a wide range of skills, from taking care of specialized equipment to constructing a home addition and building a barn.

Veach said she fell in love with southwest Missouri during a vacation, and in the 1980s went on to pursue a one-of-a-kind degree in engineering from Missouri State University. Veach designed her own degree program with the approval of her college dean, and her studies encompassed architecture, as well as electronics, tool design, robotics and programming.

After graduation, Veach spent 20 years serving as packaging engineer, paint engineer, tooling engineer, facility engineer and project engineer for such companies as Phillips Plastics, Rubbermaid, Zenith and Midwest Products.

Her career took her as far north as Wisconsin and as far south as Mexico, and she’d worked her way into upper management when, after 20 years, “I was burned out,” she said. “So, I decided to go back to my first true love, which is my art.” She had formally studied art in Minnesota before attending MSU.

Veach also has six years of teaching experience as a substitute teacher in the public schools.

The Interior Artist was launched in 2001, offering decorative painting, faux finishes, Venetian plaster and murals, and Veach sharpened her skills under a European master, Brian Bullard. Since then, she has done numerous home projects, from freehand murals and custom canvases to faux marble columns and trompe-loeil.

Women and Homeownership

The single female segment of the homebuyer population accounted for 18 percent of all home buyers in 2004.

Single women purchased approximately one in five homes in 2003, while more than one in 10 were purchased by single men.

More women (15.5 million) than men (11.8 million) live alone. Among these, women were more likely than men to own their homes (56 percent versus 47 percent).

About one-quarter of the nation’s nearly 8 million single mothers spend more than half of their incomes on housing, compared with one-tenth of households headed by single fathers.

Between 1994 and 2002, the number of unmarried females owning homes climbed to 17.5 million from 13.9 million.

Source: 2006 National Association of Realtors Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers[[In-content Ad]]